


desperate times call for desperate pleasures

by gopuckurself



Series: dtcfdp [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BDSM, Belts, Blow Jobs, Don't copy to another site, Friendship, Hand Jobs, Just a hint of, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Oblivious Grantaire, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Painplay, Phone Sex, Rope Bondage, Slow Build, Spanking, Teacher/Student Roleplay, Wax Play, actually a switch but hey, domjolras, subtaire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-01-04 11:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 47,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18343166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gopuckurself/pseuds/gopuckurself
Summary: This is not exactly what Grantaire had expected. Then again, he isn’t sure what, exactly, he expected. A huge dark room with torches on the walls and a bunch of scary-looking dudes covered in leather? The sound of someone, somewhere, screaming? A torture rack? Well. It isn’t exactly bright and thereisactually a rack in the back corner, but he’s been told that it isn’t currently functioning, and no one actually used itthatway anyway. And there’s no screaming. So that’s nice.Grantaire and Enjolras unwittingly meet for the first time in a fetish club. It's just as farcical as it sounds.





	1. Chapter 1

This is not exactly what Grantaire had expected. Then again, he isn’t sure what, exactly, he expected. A huge dark room with torches on the walls and a bunch of scary-looking dudes covered in leather? The sound of someone, somewhere, screaming? A torture rack? Well. It isn’t exactly bright and there _is_ actually a rack in the back corner, but he’s been told that it isn’t currently functioning, and no one actually used it _that_ way anyway. And there’s no screaming. So that’s nice.

He takes a moment to occupy himself with doodling an unnecessarily elaborate ‘R’ onto the plastic cup in his shaking hands with a permanent marker, and decides to _thank fuck_ that this is nothing like what porn told him it would be. So far, his first visit to a fetish club is going much better than expected. He’d just spent too many nights logged into that ugly black and red website to back out now. Sure, creating a username and password and signing up for the site was probably more than some other people did, and he definitely had put more time and effort into researching where to go to get this particular fix than _most_ other people. He’d searched through groups and lurked on message boards and ignored strangers trying to proposition him for long enough, and all signs had simply pointed him here, to Threshold. It was only a particularly intense streak of impulsiveness that had managed to get him to this specific party, having seen the posting for the event only a few days ago. What could go wrong?

Answer: _a fuck ton_ , even with all the careful research. A fuck ton of which he hadn’t properly considered until he was standing outside a building that appeared to have been a warehouse in a previous life, and while he could see the appeal of using such a place for aesthetic and atmospheric purposes, it also seemed like the kind of place where one might potentially get murdered. He occupied himself with his phone and a coin that had been left in his jacket pocket, trying to look more like he was waiting for someone and less like he was having a panic attack, and watched a couple go inside from the corner of his eye. They didn’t seem like the murdery type. To be fair, they didn’t exactly seem like the sadomasochist type either, but he’d read that the club discouraged fetishwear until inside the building for the sake of avoiding drawing any unwanted attention. Not that there was anyone really nearby to see them, but he imagined skin tight latex and puppy hoods tended to stand out. He considered texting Éponine to ask if she would clear his browser history if he died today but decided he couldn’t ask her for much more without further raising her suspicions, and he still didn’t have a very good answer if she asked what he was really doing.

 _Don’t forget you’re my cover story tonight_ , he texted her instead.

It had taken him by surprise when she replied with _Yeah, yeah. Don’t forget you’re mine either._

_Wait, since when?_

_Since my roommate is spending the night with your roommates._

_What are you doing that you don’t want Musichetta knowing about, then?_

_Same as you. Something stupid._

Grantaire took another long look at his surroundings. While this was probably not the kind of trouble Éponine planned to get into tonight, it was certainly something. But, he’d come this far.

_Fair enough._

It seemed silly, at this point. To turn around and go back home. If he didn’t find out now, he’d probably end up wondering for the rest of his life, too frightened to take that one last step. If there is one thing he hates, it’s _wondering._ Maybe it’s a side effect of living in the internet age, and having the answer to any one of his random curiosities at the touch of a button, but it’s always left him irritated. He’s never liked not knowing. This, though, this is different. If he was going to finally stop wondering, he was going to have to go inside. And he was fucking tired of constantly wondering. It’s like having an itch he can’t quite reach, a quiet little voice in his head constantly whispering ‘but what if, but what if, but what if.’ What-ifs would be the death of him. What-if was enough to get him through the door.

Once he made it inside, it was surprisingly easy. Nerve-wracking as all fuck, sure, and his hands might have been shaking the entire time, but it was easy. He signed some paperwork that presumably said he wouldn’t sue and hopefully not that he was giving away his left kidney (he didn’t look very closely), was led through a quick tour of the place which happened mostly in a blur (he also didn’t look very closely), and introduced himself to way too many people (and remembered none of them). Half of them introduced themselves by their screen names or variations thereof, the other half introduced themselves with names that could’ve been their own, and Grantaire smiled and nodded and shook hands and generally managed not to look like he feared for his life. So now, here he is, in a fetish club surrounded by strangers, with a permanent marker in one hand and a red plastic cup in the other. Hilariously, it’s almost a familiar feeling. Standing at a party, alone, getting yourself a drink. It’s a good thing it isn’t alcohol. Briefly, he sees a somewhat younger version of himself, far more comfortable alone at a party but already half-drunk on arrival, looking to chase the rest of his thoughts away with readily-available liquor. It’s a good thing it isn’t alcohol, indeed.

A voice near his shoulder asks “So, what do you think of your first visit?” and scares the absolute shit out of him. He startles so badly he nearly drops the now overly-decorated cup, fumbling with it as he turns around just in time to realize he’s probably speaking to one of the most beautiful women he’s ever seen. She carries on, heedless to or unaware of his brief lack of motor skills. “Sorry, I just noticed you were over here by yourself and wanted to be sure you didn’t feel unwelcome.”

“Well, it’s…really something.” He can’t help but smile at her, even while he struggles not to stare—remarkably difficult, draped as she is in a long, sheer skirt and covered in nothing else but strategically placed mesh and lace and black straps. She smiles brightly back at him, tucking a strand of dyed blue-grey hair behind her ear, and he knows she is absolutely the best kind of girl to find at a party, even if her heavy combat boots and smoky eye make his slightly too-tight shirt and sloppily attempted eyeliner look tame. The kind of person who seeks someone out to introduce herself just because is usually the kind of person who could make anyone feel included. Honestly. She could probably make even Marius feel at ease, even in this place and this crowd, as completely out-of-place as he would probably be. The thought makes him grin even more. “No, I’m kidding. Everyone’s been very kind. I’m just pretty sure it’s obvious to everyone here that I’m a nervous wreck and I’m hoping that isn’t the same as swimming with sharks while there’s blood in the water.”

“Some people here might not think of that as a bad metaphor to find one’s self in.” She says, quirking an eyebrow at him and making him laugh. “Everyone’s a little nervous on their first visit, it’s okay. We were all just as nervous once.”

“I’m sorry,” R begins, remembering the color of her hair though not her name, “did I meet you, earlier?”

“Yes. Lark.” She says, and he remembers now. He’d met her in the first room, though she’d been wearing different clothes then, or else he might not have let her name slip. There had just been too many faces and too many rooms since then for him to keep them all straight. She takes the cup out of his hands. “And you are R, right?”

“Right.” He nods, and breathes a little easier, the usually tedious niceties soothing in their familiarity.

“So, R, what are you drinking?” Lark asks, and fills his cup with soda when he answers before pressing it back into his hands and leading him over to the sofas on the other side of the social room. Other people mill about in pairs or triples, greeting friends they haven’t seen in a while, smiling, laughing, setting out snacks, in various states of dress and undress. In this room, it almost looks just like any other innocuous party. No scenes allowed in the social room. Only camaraderie, food, drink, and the knowledge that everyone else here is into shit that may be even weirder than your own. It’s strangely comforting.

“Is it always this…popular?” He asks, perching on the edge of a cushion.

“Not quite this busy, usually. It’s an event night, and that draws a bigger crowd. More of a party than our regular nights.”

“Oh, yeah, I saw that.” Grantaire had read about that on Threshold’s group page, and that’s why he’d decided to go. There were going to be demos set up in the back, and a ‘dress to impress’ kind of theme. Thus, his makeup. Although it isn’t nearly as impressive as he’d wanted it to be. At least he doesn’t stand out.

Lark grins at him. “You must’ve read about my demo then.”

“Your demo?” He echoes, eyebrows raised. “Which one is yours?”

She crosses a leg over her knee, pursing her lips as if in thought and indicating her shoes with a tilt of her head. “Don’t you think my boots could use a good shine?”

Oh. _Oh_. Grantaire feels his eyes go wide and he has to take a careful sip of his drink in an attempt to hide it, decidedly not thinking about polishing this woman’s boots until they shine. “Well. That sounds…” He begins, intelligently. Still, it makes her laugh, and he gives her a sheepish smile in return and pushes a hand through his hair, pretending that he isn’t ridiculously flustered by a pretty girl and her pretty laugh like he’s fifteen years old and terribly, painfully confused about his sexuality again. “Educational?”

“It will be, absolutely. Are you into that sort of thing?”

He doesn’t really know what to do with that question, at once shocked by its abruptness and appreciating it for its honesty. It’s the kind of question that isn’t hiding something. “I…like the idea of it.”

“Just wondering, don’t worry. I’m only curious. No feeding frenzy plans here.” She winks at him. “Although I do hope to see you at the demo, later. I’ll introduce you to my darling bootblack, if you do.”

“I’d like that.” He says, and he means it.

“Good. I do love interrogating the new faces.”

“You’re free to interrogate my face any time.” Grantaire says, unable to help himself, cracking a smile.

“Oh, God, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” Lark says, groaning and covering her face with her hands, even though she’s laughing again. “Please tell me you’ve got a little more game than that. You’re way too cute not to have better game than that.”

“Well, I’m flattered you think so.”

“What brings you to Threshold tonight, then, if not boot-blacking?”

He shrugs. “Curiosity, mostly.”

“How very vague and nondescript. Good answer.”

Grantaire has to put a dramatic hand to his chest, as if offended. “Honestly! Nothing specific.”

“Everyone has something specific.”

“I mean, I like to think I’d try anything once. Almost everything sounds interesting, at least in theory. And if it doesn’t sound interesting now, that isn’t to say I won’t be interested with a little encouragement from someone enthusiastic about whatever it may be.” He shrugs again, disregarding how strange it feels to be discussing something like this, out loud, without any care who might overhear. “I like the aesthetic of most rope I’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean I’d like having my leg tied behind my head, just like that doesn’t mean I _won’t_ like having my leg tied behind my head until I try it.”

“Oh, so you’re one of those.” She rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling at him so he doesn’t think he should take that as any kind of insult, at least, not really.

“Disregarding the fact that I so do not do enough yoga to be that flexible, of course.”

“Of course. If rope is something you’re actually interested in, though, I definitely have some people you should meet.” 

“I’d like that as well.”

“Well, then, have a more specific question, and hopefully give me some more specific information to work with.”

“No promises.”

“Of course not. Fine, fine. So, do you think you lean more towards the d-side or the s-side?”

Grantaire considers this. Sure, he has an _idea_ , but it had taken him this long to figure out he was definitively interested at all, and that was really long enough. He hadn’t had the time to figure out what all he was interested in, not yet. That was why he was here, after all. To meet the people to figure it out. “Well, I put ‘switch’ on my profile, I thought it was a pretty apt descriptor. Some things appeal to me from one side of the dynamic, and others from…well, the other.”

“Hm. Makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Yep.” Lark smiles, enigmatically, standing up when someone calls for her from across the room. “But that’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself, young padawan. Be right back.”

“So you’re a Jedi _Mistress_ , then?”

“You’re adorable, I like you.” She kisses the top of his head as she leaves, and Grantaire feels vaguely like he’s just received benediction.

When she leaves, one member of the couple that had been sitting on the sofa across from him turns to him and asks “Do you mind if I ask you a kind of personal question?” He immediately starts racking his brain trying to figure out where this person might know him from outside of his online presence associated with Threshold and mildly panicking.

“Um, depends on what that is.” He answers, after a beat of silence, when he decides he doesn’t recognize either the guy or the girl from anywhere. 

“Are you and Lark together?” She asks, confused, and he laughs a little in relief.

“Oh, no. We’ve just met actually.” When she raises her eyebrows at him, he continues, “I’m new. First time here. She was helping me feel welcome.”

The girl lets out a squeal in excitement and delight, and it’s both adorable and endearing as she tugs on her boyfriend’s shirt so that they can squeeze into the little bit of space left on Grantaire’s sofa to sit next to him. Like Lark, everyone else also loves new faces, apparently. He can't remember another time where he’d entered a space so full of unfamiliar people that welcomed him so readily and enthusiastically. Everyone wanted to know his name, or his nickname, at least, and wanted him to know theirs so he could friend them online. He has the same conversation with this couple as he’s had with everyone else, where they exchange usernames and ask what kind of things he’d like to try, giving him their recommendations as they go. He’s listening with a mix of rapt fascination and complete horror as they describe something called ‘fire-flogging’ to him, when Lark returns with a friend.

A friend he…recognizes.

It takes him a second longer than it should to figure it out, his brain fuzzily recognizing a familiar face before it reconciles it with the unfamiliar surroundings. This is not the way he’d expected things to go when he woke up this morning. Granted, this is not something he’d expected to ever actually do. At all. Still, he finds himself looking up at one of Joly’s friends, wiry, tall, and remarkably shirtless, the black and white floral tattoo on his shoulder obscured by the criss-cross of a black leather harness. If he didn’t know better, and if these were different circumstances, Grantaire would’ve been a little more interested in introducing himself. As it is, a part of him briefly wishes the soda in his cup was something stronger, as usual, except that Threshold doesn’t allow alcohol on site and kicks anyone who appears to be intoxicated off the premises. That, and he’s been on a sober streak for a while now. Getting recognized on his first visit to a fetish club is not what’s going to make him fall off the metaphorical wagon. Though, he’s not sure he can think of any better reason. A good sign to stay sober, probably.

“R, this is Puck.” Lark says, oblivious to Grantaire’s horror. He stands up, because if they’re going to address this he wants to be on the same level as Joly’s curly-haired friend when it happens—which turns out to be impossible, because he’s a good few inches taller than Grantaire. “He’s one of our favorite rope deities.”

“Hi.” Grantaire says, after a beat too long, trying to decide what to do when it inevitably comes up that yes, they are both here, in a fetish club, and yes, they have met before. It’s not that he’s ashamed of himself, not really, but this could quickly get a bit awkward. Surely he isn’t the first person who has had to navigate recognizing someone in a fetish club, right? The odds are in his favor that he probably isn’t, still, all his research hadn’t exactly prepared him for this situation. Now that he finds himself face-to-face with the other man he can see there’s glitter intermingling with the light freckles across his cheekbones, eyes lined in a dark purple. He winks at Grantaire and nearly gives him a heart attack. “I’m R.”

“Pleased to meet you, R.” He says, and it takes a moment for Grantaire to catch on. He smiles, in a way that either means ‘your secret is safe with me’ or he doesn’t actually remember previously meeting his friend’s weird second roommate who is in no way and in many ways involved in their polyamorous triad. Grantaire isn’t sure he cares which one it is, just that he can breathe easily again. All that worry for so little reason. Story of his fucking life. “As our mutual friend says, I’m known as Puck here, though I can’t exactly speak to my divinity.”

Lark hooks her arm through Joly’s friend’s, leaning towards R to continue in a conspiratorial tone. “He is the kind of person who can get his leg tied behind his head. I’ve seen him in some impossible-looking suspensions.”

“Oh? Well. Give me your hands if we be friends.” R quotes with some amusement, shaking the other man’s hand and glancing at the light reflecting off the glitter on his face. He’s not met so many people he’s been dazzled by all at once in as long as he can remember. These two make a stunning pair, dressed as if looks could kill, and Grantaire feels a little inadequate beside them.

The man, Puck, apparently, grins. “I am that merry wanderer of the night.” He confirms, and Grantaire doesn’t think there could be another name more suited for this person, willow-like and beautiful but possibly just as dangerous, if the glint in his eye is anything to go by. “I go by that or Merry, or Jehan. But Puck is the one most people remember.”

“You are certainly memorable.” Grantaire says, and grins when Jehan raises an eyebrow at him. Because he does remember Jehan now that he’s said his name, and R may be imagining it but there seems to be a second conversation going on here. There’s something a little too tempting about playing along nonetheless, even if it means dancing right up to the line of acknowledging their outside connection, unable to resist a game and a little wordplay. It seems to be the way to impress a self-titled trickster, by the way he continues grinning back. Or else Grantaire is simply reading too much into it. Always a possibility.

“Ah, flatterer. That will get you places, you know.” He says, appraising Grantaire carefully, dragging a thumb across his lips as he does. “Very pleased to meet you. I love your makeup.”

He laughs before he can help himself. “Oh, believe me.” He says, with emphasis. “The pleasure is mine. I am not dressed well enough to be introduced to so many beautiful people in one night, and my eyeliner skills are clearly nothing compared to both of yours.” He’d felt a little silly putting it on, before coming, but now he’s very glad. He’d have felt far more out of place in only a shirt and jeans here than he does with the little touch of makeup.

“See? I told you he’s adorable.” Lark says, her turn to grin at him. Where Jehan’s grin made him fear a little bit for his life, Lark’s grin is sweet enough it almost makes him laugh. Her gentleness seems out of place in a place like this, but he’s grateful for it. And he’s pretty sure that despite her sweet smile, she’d probably step on him just as soon as look at him, and frankly, he’s not sure he would mind. “Jehan is also everyone’s favorite switch, so you two get to know each other while I get myself a drink and then go find my darling bootblack.”

Grantaire watches Lark disappear and waits to see if Jehan will bring it up, unwilling to do so himself. “So…”

“So.” Jehan echoes, sipping whatever’s in his own cup. There’s no longer any room left on the sofa, so they end up standing off to one side, and Grantaire does not think about how he’s almost backed into a corner, literally. He’d finally got his nerves mostly under control and he doesn’t want to let his own thoughts throw him off balance again. “You’re interested in _shibari_ , then?”

“Well. Yes, some of it, though scrolling through photos of it on the internet is about the extent of my knowledge on the matter.” Grantaire says, latching onto this new topic of conversation gratefully. “Some of it, suspensions in particular, look a little…”

“Frightening?”

“I was going to say ‘intimidating’ or ‘daunting,’ but that’s a pretty good word for it too. I’m not sure I could handle dangling from the ceiling by one arm, I mean.”

Jehan chuckles. “Don’t be worried. It takes a lot of practice and patience to be able to handle many suspension positions like that. I’ve been doing this for some years now. No one I know would dangle you from one arm immediately, if ever, and if someone did, I’d advise you to run away from them before they get you in any rope. Quickly.”

“That seems like very sound advice, thank you.”

“But you’re interested, intimidation notwithstanding?”

Grantaire nods. “Isn’t that why people like to ride rollercoasters? Because the hills look…daunting?”

“Precisely.” Jehan says, another smile spreading across his face. “I like the way you think. What’s your username, again?”

“Uh.” Grantaire hesitates. He shouldn’t have picked something so close to his own name, but that regret comes a little too late. “Grandeur, with the last R capitalized.”

“Good. I’ll send you a friend request after this. Come find me after Lark’s demo, I’ll introduce you to some other people I think you should meet.”

“The rest of Mount Olympus?”

“Indeed. You’re quick.” Grantaire tilts his head and waves his hand in a small imitation of a bow, as Jehan slips away from him back into the ever-growing crowd. “Excuse me for a bit, I’ll talk to you again later. Grand-R.”

 _Jesus._ Lark appears to take Jehan’s place a moment later, another very pretty young woman in tow, their hands laced together, leaving less time than he needs to process the fact that Jehan had essentially just said his name back to him, out-loud.This woman’s interpretation of the ‘dress to impress’ theme is very similar to Jehan’s, because she’s wearing only a skirt and a ribbon choker. Grantaire is purposefully sure to keep his eyes on her face as Lark introduces her. (He is way too fucking _bisexual_ for this, apparently.) “Now, R, this is Sera, who I may have mentioned a few times.”

“The darling bootblack?”

“That’s me.” Sera says, with a pleased smile. “Has my Lady Lark been bragging about me?”

“Always, darling.” Lark kisses Sera’s cheek, and Grantaire realizes he might have just discovered why that younger couple were confused about him and Lark possibly being together. “R is coming to our demo.”

“Is he?”

“He is.” Grantaire confirms, matching the women’s smiles with one of his own.

“That’s great news. Come with us while we set up and you get first dibs on seating.”

Grantaire is glad for the break from the loud and still growing crowd, and he follows the women to the biggest two doors in the social room, where Lark pauses just long enough to yank a door open and yell, “Ladies, gentlemen, those both outside and in between… doors are open.” A collective cheer goes up in the social room, and it feels electric, anticipation breaking, a playful victory cry. It makes R grin. He catches sight of Jehan, briefly, and the other man waves. He waves back. It occurs to him that even though this wasn’t how he expected this day to go this morning, even though he hadn’t come here with this intention, he might have made a few new friends.

It’s a nice feeling.

It’s been a while, he supposes. Since he’s actually befriended anyone new. The type of crowd that frequents the Paint-And-Party isn’t exactly his same demographic. Although he’s not sure if this scene is his crowd, it’s definitely closer than the wine moms that show up to his part-time workplace every Tuesday night.

Lark and Sera lead him to a back room off to the side of the main play area, and put him to work setting up folding chairs while they get their things together. Apparently this mostly involves a ritual where Sera goes through her kit and makes sure she has all of her supplies while Lark drags a chair to the front of the room and directs Grantaire to line the other chairs in a semi-circle around her own. “Perfect.” She says cheerfully, when he finishes, and checks her phone for the time. “And just in time, too, Gabriel should be announcing us in the social room right about now. Find your seat quick, R.”

After a moment of thought, Grantaire picks a seat close to one tip of the crescent, farthest from the door but still close enough to Lark and Sera to see. People begin to file in, quietly taking seats and waving to each other, and Lark greets a few of them by name, including the couple who had told R about the fire-flogging. They happily take the two seats closest to Grantaire, apparently eager to talk to him some more. He doesn’t know how he’s managing to charm so many people into wanting to speak with him, but he’s definitely going to start wearing this shirt more often. Just in case.

Or maybe it’s the eyeliner.

“Hey, everyone, if you don’t mind, let’s get started.” Lark says, after a moment, when a group of about fifteen people have appeared, and she smiles when everyone falls quiet. She looks just as angelic as she had all night, but there’s something a little sharper to her expression when all eyes in this room are on her. Grantaire wonders if she practices that. “A few of you I already know, and for those of you I don’t, hello, nice to meet you, you may recognize me from the forums as LadyLark. And this is…”

Sera hovers behind Lark’s shoulder, tying her hair up in a bun and flashing her own smile. Each of the women seem to be, in their own ways, a bit of a performer. It’s fascinating to watch. “Sera. Seraphic online.”

“And we’re going to be showing you just a little bit of boot-blacking today.”

“By no means will this be a comprehensive lesson.” Sera says, dryly, picking up from the end of Lark’s sentence seamlessly. “But we’ll go through the basic technique, step-by-step, and perhaps you’ll learn something new or we’ll pique your interest. Then you’ll get to see a bit of it in action.”

“And I get a pair of shiny shoes.”

“Exactly.” Sera says, grinning when Lark looks up to make an affectionate face at her. She continues speaking to the gathered audience while she circles around to kneel beside Lark’s chair, kit nearby, “As you may know, this is a practice that is most prominent in the gay and leather scene, which owes a lot of its creation to military protocols—but I don’t have time to give you a full history of the practice, so I’ll just encourage you, if you’re interested, to do some research online. Possibly on a private browser, depending on what kind of research you’re doing.”

That gets a quiet chuckle from the group, and Sera produces a few supplies from her bag, pulling Lark’s feet into her lap.

“Now, depending on your relationship with your boot-black, this experience can be anything from simply a service they provide for you, to…”

“A power-exchange.” Lark leans forward and digs her heel into Sera’s thigh, and Sera sucks in a sharp, audible breath. Grantaire thinks he might be the only one who sees the way Lark winks at her, though.

“So make sure you know what the energy is before you sit down in the chair.” Sera makes short work of the laces of one boot, before turning to her things. “The first step is cleaning the boots with saddle soap…”

Grantaire listens with rapt attention, though he gets a little lost when Sera describes what kind of product she’s using, and why, and briefly imagines himself in Lark’s shoes. Er, _boots_ , rather. But even in his head, it doesn’t exactly feel right. He doesn’t have the same regal sort of air that Lark pulls off here. Sure, there are definitely other things that appeal to him from that side of the dynamic, but in this case, he can’t imagine himself feeling anything but awkward, watching someone else working polish into his shoes. Perhaps with the right person.

The idea of shining someone else’s shoes, though…

He’s thought about this before. He doesn’t know what it is, specifically, that appeals to him. The power exchange. The act of service. The physical demonstration of submission, literally lowering oneself below someone else. Whatever it is, it’s a heady thought, in and of itself. He watches Sera kiss the toe of Lark’s other boot, shifting their performance into something a little more intimate, and Grantaire imagines the taste of leather on his tongue.

Yeah. He can get _definitely_ get behind that idea.

He leaves with the rest of the spectators and returns to the now much-less-crowded social room, making a bee-line for the drinks. He needs one, after that, and he takes a moment to recover, hovering briefly by himself in a far corner. From there, he spots a small group of people crowded together around an armchair, including Jehan, who perches bird-like and princely on one arm of the chair, leaning to speak to the other man who sits with him. Together they do make a god-like image, separate from the rest of the room, Dionysus and Apollo holding court in the middle of a fetish club.

Grantaire hadn’t seen the other man before. He must’ve arrived later, during the demo. R knows this because he knows he would’ve _remembered_ that man, because he’s wearing nothing more remarkable than a pair of dark jeans and a red button down and he still manages to stand out, even more than if he’d had a spotlight following him. His hair is tied back in a simple bun, his sleeves rolled up. Perhaps it’s the lack of anything ostentatious that makes him stand out, but Grantaire doesn’t thinks that’s what it is. It’s something to do with his manner, the way he holds himself or the way his eyes scan the crowd, maybe. Grantaire doesn’t realize that he’s staring until the other man makes eye contact, and he quickly looks away, finding Sera and Lark returning to the social room through the main doors.

Lark has her arm thrown around Sera’s shoulder, and she looks around, apparently for him, because she brightens when she sees Grantaire and directs them towards his corner. “R! Did you like our demo?”

“Hey.” Grantaire says, smiling. “I did, yes. Very much so. Educational indeed.”

She has such an easy laugh, melodic and cheerful and infectious. He likes making her laugh.

“Thanks for helping us set up, R. It was sweet of you.” Sera says, untangling herself from Lark’s embrace. “I’d stay and chat, but I have a wife at home I need to get back to. It was nice meeting you, though.”

Grantaire decides then to stop trying to guess anyone’s relationship status whatsoever. The two women each kiss each other on the cheek by way of good-bye, and he and Sera shake hands with the promise that he’ll friend or follow her later, or whatever it’s called on the forum.

He sneaks a glance back at the man in the armchair and this time finds him looking at Grantaire, only, he doesn’t look away.

Neither does Grantaire.

It feels significant, somehow, and Grantaire knows, just _knows_ that this time he really is reading too much into it, but still. He looks. The stranger looks, and then, after a moment, smiles to himself as if he’s just remembered some private joke. And simply returns to the conversation happening around him. Yeah, okay. He tells himself that his life is not a movie, and that narratively significant moments don’t happen like that in real life. No matter how strange and surreal his day might be. Nonetheless. “Hey, Lark? Who’s that guy in the chair, with Jehan? He looks popular.”

“Oh, he is.” Lark says, withan indecipherable grin. “Ange is Threshold’s resident celebrity.”

 _Ange_.

It’s fitting.

“Interesting. Need a drink?” He asks, trying to ignore the magnetic energy of the group around the stranger. “I’m going to get a refill.”

Jehan is there with Lark when he returns, because that’s just how Grantaire’s luck goes even if his life is not a movie, and he quickly takes Grantaire’s arm and leads him directly to Threshold’s resident celebrity. Somehow it is completely unsurprising that this is the person Jehan had meant when he said he had people Grantaire should meet. “Look, I brought us a new friend.”

“Have you?” Ange asks, and he raises an eyebrow at Grantaire, who simply waves awkwardly by way of greeting. “Pleased to meet you, in that case. Does our new friend have a name?”

“R.” Grantaire and Jehan say at the same time, and R offers his hand to shake. Ange smiles when he takes it.

“Hello, R. I’m Ange.”

The name sounds slightly familiar.

Grantaire wonders where he’s heard it before, or seen it. Closer, now, he takes a moment to look and see if he recognizes the man’s face, but nothing about him screams familiarity. Just the name. He must’ve read it somewhere. Perhaps he’d seen it online?

He’d remember that face.

“Nice to meet you, as well.” R says, after a moment too long, feeling vaguely like this man might be able to see right through him and not entirely sure what to do about it. “I hear you’re the man to talk to about rope, is that true?”

He flashes Grantaire another smile, and Grantaire realizes he might be a little bit fucked, because he’s known this man for all of ten seconds and he’s already scrambling to think of ways to earn that smile again. “Absolutely.”

 

* * *

 

Grantaire spills out of Threshold around two in the morning with a list of usernames, a membership card, and a smile he can’t shake. As well as a few new friends. This may be good for his general disposition, but it isn’t exactly the greatest for his sleep schedule. He wakes to the sound of pots and pans clattering together, and Musichetta’s unrestrained laughter. He groans, fumbling for his phone before remembering it’s dead, and it’s also the third Saturday of the month. Waffle Day.

As much as he does not want to get out of bed until he has to go to work later, he needs to make an appearance, or Joly and Bossuet are going to bring Waffle Day to him if he doesn’t bring himself to Waffle Day. It’s a very sacred tradition, and he really doesn’t want to miss it, he’s just tired and therefore a little bit grumpy. To be fair, that is very much in the spirit of Waffle Day: it had started at school, during exams, a way to celebrate the end of them when they were all tired and struggling not to ruin their sleep schedules. It was a tradition that Joly and Bossuet had kept up even when they had graduated and Grantaire had not, and then after that, it simply continued. The least Grantaire can do is get up and eat with them. He can nap later, if he really needs it. Blearily, he rolls out of bed, picking up his jeans only long enough to fish his phone out of the pocket to plug it up, and heads to the kitchen in only his shirt and boxers. It’s fine. They’ve seen him in less, probably.

Applause greets him cheerfully when he opens his door.

“Shhh, it’s too early for that.” He says, squinting at the sunlight coming in through the windows. Nonetheless, the smell of waffles makes his stomach rumble as Bossuet pours some batter into the pan. “Where’s the coffee?”

“Here.” Joly hands him a mug from where he sits on the counter, which only he can manage, although even his shoulders have to hunch to fit under the cabinets. The apartment would be hardly big enough for three Joly-sized people to live in, and with R, Bossuet, and occasionally Musichetta, the two bedroom is a tight squeeze. (None of them would have it any other way, though.) “So, it sure seems like someone had a late night last night, huh?”

Grantaire holds up a finger, ignoring the suggestive tone, then promptly reaches for the sugar, pouring an obscene amount of it into his mug while making direct eye contact with Joly.

“Holy shit, dude, I already put sugar in that for you!”

Grantaire takes a sip of his now perfectly sweet coffee, almost all traces of bitterness drowned out by milk and sugar. “Not nearly enough.”

“No offense, R,” Musichetta says, dryly, her arms wrapped around Bossuet’s middle and her chin resting on his shoulder, “but please never apply to work at the café. I don’t think I can recommend you to make coffee in good faith.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m improving this coffee, not ruining it.”

Bossuet adds the fresh waffles to a pile of animal-shaped deliciousness, knocking R’s hands away when he reaches for them. “Not to support Grantaire’s horrible coffee habits, but isn’t that horribly sugary frappe thing, like, the best-selling item on your menu?”

A light-hearted argument erupts between the three of them about coffee snobbery and sugary espressos and fair trade coffee beans that quickly spirals off-topic. Grantaire simply leans against the fridge and listens to his friends’ familiar bickering, nursing his headache with his coffee. By the time he finishes it, the inside of his mouth is sticky with sweetness, his headache has lessened, and Bossuet has finished the waffles. Half of them end up burnt, forgotten to the conversation, like they always do. It wouldn’t be tradition if they didn’t. When they each have a plate piled high with waffles, butter, and maple syrup, they crash onto the couch and promptly stuff their faces in companionable silence. Waffle Day might be the longest streak of no-talking they’ve ever achieved. It makes Grantaire smile, if a little bit begrudgingly.

Bossuet is the first person to break the silence. “Have I ever told you that I love you guys?”

Joly bursts into a fit of laughter, long enough that they all start to get a little worried about him catching his breath. “Dude, we know. Like, no—no shit! You’re dating two of us!”

“What? It’s Waffle Day, I’m allowed to be sentimental!”

“I, for one, only tolerate the three of you.” Grantaire says, around a mouthful of waffle. “Don’t worry, Boss. Two out of three isn’t bad.”

“Liar. You adore us.”

He does.

“Don’t think we’ve forgotten about how late you came home last night, Grantaire. I've worn makeup long enough to know what yesterday's eyeliner looks like.” Musichetta says, eyeing him over her plate. Shit. He'd forgotten. “What were you and Éponine up to?”

“Oh, you know us. Mischief.” He wipes an eye with the back of his hand even though he knows that'll only smudge it at best.

Joly scoffs at that. “Yeah, right. You don’t voluntarily stay out that late without good reason, especially not before a shift at the pottery place.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. My shift is at the bookstore today.”

“All right, then, Gandalf. Keep your secrets.”

Grantaire can’t help feeling a little bit guilty, but he’s not technically lying, really, so he figures it’s okay. Could be worse, you know? Where would he even begin, if he meant to tell them the whole truth? Would he call it an impulse decision, or one he’d carefully thought out and then only acted upon on impulse? He doesn’t know, but it doesn’t really matter. His friends and their girlfriend don’t necessarily need to know a thing about it. It was only a party, strictly speaking. One that didn’t even have any alcohol. There are definitely worse places he could’ve been last night.

They can tell he’s not hungover, at least, and that’s probably the only reason Joly kept pressing it at all. Grantaire thinks, sometimes, that he doesn’t deserve Joly’s worry for him. Not after all the shit he put his roommate through when they were in school. He gives Joly his last waffle when he’s not looking. Elephant-shaped, which is his favorite. Some things Grantaire will never be able to make up for, no matter how many Waffle Days they have, but he’ll try.

“So, what are you three up to today, then?”

“Work for me, same as you.” Musichetta says.

“Joly and I are going to hang out with some friends from the group. Day off.”

Right. The Group. Grantaire nods. He knows of them and their history, in parts. “The Group” had originally been a university-sponsored club that quickly became something else entirely, and Joly and Bossuet had been a part of it since their first year. Presumably the club in its original form is still there, at the school, but the group as J and B knew it has long since graduated. They still hang out, apparently, and sometimes they still meet up altogether at the café where Musichetta works, in an effort to keep in touch, he supposes. They even have a name for themselves, though he doesn’t ever remember it. He’d always thought it sounded vaguely cultish, but he kept those thoughts to himself, especially since Joly used to constantly ask him to come with. The invitations are few and far between, now, but R still gently declines. He’s met a few of them before, like Marius.

Like Jehan. He doesn’t think he’d really fit in with that crowd. Or at least, he used to think so.

He’s not so sure anymore.

He thinks back to Jehan, his leather and eyeliner, and the night before. And his friend. Ange. Threshold’s own celebrity. When they spoke last night, Grantaire could immediately see why. Even dressed as he was, such casual attire compared to others there, Ange was possibly the most attractive person in the room, and he seemed to know it. This would have irritated Grantaire if it were anyone else. Somehow Ange made it look charming, and he’d been so enthusiastic while talking to Grantaire that he didn’t mind. It was impossible not to listen to him when he spoke. Grantaire is fairly sure he isn’t the only one who left the event last night with a bit of a crush on him. Which is exactly why R is not thinking about it, at all, whatsoever.

“Hey, Chetta?” He asks, suddenly.

“Yes, dear?”

“Do you have any makeup remover here that I can borrow?”

 

* * *

 

It’s late by the time Grantaire gets home from work, and he’s exhausted from shelving all day, but there’s at least fifteen messages in his inbox notifying him of friend requests and messages from the people he’d met at Threshold the night before. He quickly begins to remember why he’d sworn off social media. Nevertheless, when he settles in for bed, he carries his laptop with him to sort through them all.

Among them is a message from Ange, and a friend request. Grantaire almost doesn’t want to open it.

 _Hey_ , he says, which is a completely unassuming and normal beginning to a message. Grantaire lets out a sigh of relief. _I hope you don’t mind Jehan gave me your username. It was nice to meet you yesterday. Ange._ Sent earlier today, during Grantaire’s shift at the bookstore. Absolutely nothing worth freaking out over. Totally normal. Grantaire can definitely respond in a totally normal manner. Right?

 _No problem. I enjoyed talking with you. I’ll keep my eye out for the next rope night. R._ Not bad, if he does say so himself. He doesn’t really expect a reply, but he doesn’t mind. A friend request is more than he expected. Or, perhaps, Ange is like Lark and likes introducing himself to new faces? That would explain both the message and the way he’d smiled at Grantaire from afar. He seemed genial enough. It made sense. And yet, fifteen minutes later, he’s still sifting through his friend requests and the new message notification pings.

_Good. I hope you do. I’d like to see you at Threshold again. Ange._

Okay. Well. That could mean a number of things. But it still makes Grantaire’s stomach do a bit of a somersault. He resolves not to think too much about it, and gets up to get a glass of water and take his meds, or else his thoughts might keep him awake all night. When he returns, he finds another.

_Would you be interested in coming back to Threshold to do a scene, with me? Ange._

Holy shit.

He squints at his laptop screen, trying to decide if making a decision like that is acceptable at this hour, after nearly a full day of work.

_Are you serious, or is that more of a hypothetical question? R._

_That depends,_ Ange writes back. _If I were serious, hypothetically, what would your answer be? Ange._

Grantaire considers this a moment, feeling vaguely flabbergasted. Much like yesterday, this wasn’t how he expected his day to go when he woke up this morning. What new and exciting times he lives in. The most noncommittal answer he can think of is _Depends on what kind of hypothetical scene you hypothetically have in mind. R._

Ange is quick to respond. _Absolutely nothing you wouldn’t want. You get to make the rules here. Ange._

_I will tell you I took a quick look through the likes you’ve marked on your profile, though. Ange._

He blinks at that message for a long moment. He’d made the profile ages ago, he can’t even remember what he’d marked as his likes and dislikes. Most of them he probably just clicked on a whim, not expecting anyone to ever see it. But Ange had looked at his profile. Read it even. He supposes that this shouldn’t be such a novel experience, but he hasn’t been on any form of social media for so long that he’s forgotten what it was like to have information about himself out there, in the world, for anyone to look at. That’s what it’s there for, even. So that people can look at his profile and see if their interests align.

(Ange must think their interests align.)

He opens his own profile in another tab and scrolls through the list to familiarize himself with it again, then stares blankly at the empty message box. Ange’s last message sits there, looking back at him, expressing Ange’s interest in him, or at least, in doing a scene with him. The other man’s profile picture is a photo of a girl in suspension, rope hugging her hips and lifting her off the ground, her spine a delicate arc. Grantaire’s profile looks almost funny right next to it, simply an innocent picture of his paint-covered hands. The juxtaposition reminds him that Ange is worlds ahead of him as far as experience with this sort of thing goes. He should probably tread carefully.

 _I’m not exactly prepared for any heavy pain play or heavy bondage. R._ He can’t help but backtrack, after a moment, adding _at the moment_ on to the end of his sentence before he hits send. Honesty is important, after all.

_I was thinking something a little less intense. I wouldn’t want to scare you off right away. Ange._

_So you do have something in mind, then. R._

_Perhaps. I would enlighten you, but I can’t help but notice you haven’t ever actually answered me. Ange._

_I’m interested. R._ Grantaire hits send and immediately closes his laptop, heart rate spiking. He waits for his eyes to adjust to the dark, breathing slow. It feels a little bit dangerous, making plans like this (and if he isn’t careful, it could really be, but he doesn’t think _Ange_ is inherently dangerous), much like making plans to go cliff jumping or sky diving. Much like the drop at the top of the rollercoaster. After moment, he opens the laptop back up again, frantically turning the brightness down when it stings his eyes.

_Have you ever played with candle wax before? Ange._

_Aside from dipping my fingers in it as a child? No. R._

There’s a much longer pause between messages this time, and Grantaire wonders if he’s said the wrong thing. He’s typing out another message to explain that it had mostly been a joke (although it was completely true) when he gets a reply: _I’ll have to be sure you keep your hands out of the way, in that case. I’m sure I can think of some way. Ange._

Grantaire laughs. His hands hover over the keys for a moment, his heart thumping away in his chest. That sounds like flirting. Are they flirting? He doesn’t know. _I don’t doubt it. R._

_Yes to me tying your hands, then? Ange._

_Yes. Yes to wax, too. R._

Oh, god. Grantaire has no idea what he’s doing.

_Good. We’ll have plenty of fun then. Ange._

Is this really happening? Apparently so.

_Not anything more than that. I don’t think I ought to jump straight into the deep end. R._

_Understandable. I respect that. We can just play around a little, no pressure at all. Try it on your back, and if you like that, your chest, nothing more. Sound good? Ange._

_Sounds great. Thank you. R._

_No need to thank me, I’m just respecting your boundaries. I want you to know that you can trust I won’t cross them. Ange._

Grantaire isn’t sure what to say to that at all, shocked by Ange’s respectfulness. Is he always like that? They aren’t even talking about anything Grantaire would consider serious—nothing like the fire-flogging or the other myriad of painful and vaguely frightening activities he’d heard about yesterday, but he’s still going out of his way to reassure Grantaire that they don’t have to do anything R doesn’t want to. _Still. Thank you. R._

_How would you feel about a blindfold maybe being involved? Ange._

_You probably shouldn’t be blindfolded while holding a lit candle. R._

There’s another long pause after his joke that he doesn’t know what to think of, but he’s incapable of taking this conversation too seriously, because then he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle it. The past 24 hours would simply be too much. Besides, it’s called playing for a reason, isn’t it? Ange had just said so himself. For Grantaire that means he’ll be hanging on to as much snark as possible.

_I see I’ll have to be more careful with my words around you. Ange._

_I’m a smart ass, what can I say? R._ He grins.

_Well, then, smart ass, let me rephrase: how would you feel about being blindfolded? Ange._

Grantaire lets out a slow breath. _I’d rather not. R._

_Absolutely understood. All of this is entirely up to you. Ange._

_I have all the control over how much control I’m giving up, then? R._

_Now you’ve got it. Next weekend? I’ll be at Threshold Saturday night. Ange._

Grantaire checks his work schedule on his phone. He has a full day of work at the Paint-And-Party Saturday, but he’s entirely off on Sunday. Which would mean he’d show up to the club already tired. So it would either be the worst possible timing, or the best.Just a week away. Seven days to think about it and figure out if he’s making some kind of monumental mistake, or seven days to wait impatiently for it. He thinks he can handle that. He can handle seven days. _Sure. That works for me. R._

The next message has an air of finality about it: _Good. Ange._ Although Grantaire doesn’t mind, it’s much past his bedtime, especially after the late night the day before. Still, he can’t help staring at his screen in stunned silence, looking at both his and Ange’s profile picture one after the other, surprised that Ange had asked, perhaps even more surprised that he’d agreed himself. He clicks on Ange’s profile picture to see it better, and finds himself scrolling through his photos.

His profile is just filled with pictures of men and women in various ties, ranging from simple and elegant to elaborate and painful-looking. The first one, the woman suspended in front of a black backdrop, red light highlighting all of her curves. A man with his hands tied above his head, candle wax covering the tops of his thighs. Another woman in rope such a dark red it almost looks like blood, kneeling in snow with nothing but boots and rope to keep her warm. There are pretty much equal parts men and women of all shapes and sizes tied to posts, rafters, tables, trees. There are even a couple of photos of Jehan, upside down with his arms tied behind his back and grinning at Grantaire through the computer screen like he _knows_ something. It takes a couple of ‘next’ button clicks before he finds one in which Ange himself appears. A triptych of him tying another man, only once making eye contact with the camera, wrapping himself as well as rope around the man whose curls would look like Grantaire’s if they were just a bit darker. For the space of a breath and a heartbeat, Grantaire lets himself feel a bit jealous, which he rarely does, and then he clicks ‘next’ one more time.

This is an image of a woman with bright green hair, suspended over a body of water, barely touching it, her arms and legs bent as if in sleep and her hair spread over the water’s surface as if over bedsheets. Flowers are spread through her hair and knots in the rope. Grantaire has no idea how they managed to get the shot, but it’s stunning. This is also an image he recognizes, somehow. His head spins with the uncanny sensation that comes with déjà vu, and he studies the photo until he sees the clue that tips him off—a watermark. He clicks back a few times, seeing it hidden in every picture, wondering how the hell he’d missed it before, and how the hell he didn’t realize he’d seen Ange’s watermark before, months back, on _this_ photo on tumblr, with thousands of notes.

He goes to Ange’s profile to be sure, just to confirm what he already knows, now, and finds this brief description: “Not a photographer, but a lover of masochists and rope who just so happens to have a camera,” along with a list of links, a list of appearances, and a business email.

Threshold’s resident celebrity indeed. He clicks through to Ange’s website, where he finds another description: “Ange is a semi-professional photographer and rigger/rope top,” with a description of where he’s primarily found, and that same business email.

It’s just then, when he sees the business email for the second time, that the full force of the realization hits Grantaire: he has just agreed to do a scene with a fairly well-known and somewhat internet famous _shibari_ god, partially on purpose, but mostly on accident, unaware of Ange’s reputation but very, very aware of his charm. (And his smile.)

Holy _shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed all that exposition, now please excuse me while I scream for three days straight about actually posting a multi-chapter fic again.
> 
> you can shoot me an ask on my tumblr [here](https://gopuckurself.tumblr.com/), but please for the love of god don't ask me:  
> 1\. where this story is set (the answer is somewhere vaguely american, probably)  
> 2\. if I'll post regular updates (the answer is I'm trying my best but who knows)  
> 3\. if Jehan is my self-insert (the answer is probably, though not entirely intentionally)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Who said I can't play nice? Ange._
> 
> _Aren't you a sadist? Do you even know the meaning of the word? R._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter: flirting disguised as negotiation, brief mentions of alcoholism/recovery, someone's petplay-adjacent fantasy (also brief), the previously promised waxplay, and also I try to remember what it was like to have thirteen-year-old siblings

The week that follows is _really something_ , to say the least.

Grantaire half-expects to find out on Sunday morning that he’d hallucinated the entire experience, or dreamt it, or something. Or even (perhaps the most realistic of his paranoia-riddled theories) he’d open his laptop, the green-haired woman still there on his screen, and find a message from Ange that says something along the lines of “get hazed, motherfucker.” Or something. He never said it was _plausible,_ just that it might be the most realistic. However, he can’t tell if this skepticism of a potentially good thing is his brain’s natural defenses trying to protect him or if it’s something he should bring up in therapy.

None of that happens, but that doesn’t stop him from having a job to go to, either. A retail job he only kind of doesn’t hate. Then again, it’s not the job he dislikes so much as it is the shitty customers. That’s just life with an art degree and few marketable skills, baby! Well. That’s not really fair. He can’t blame it all on the arts education. But it’s difficult not to feel like life is passing him by, stuck in this temporary place between all the milestones of ‘average’ adulthood and unable to find his way to the next stage, watching everyone else leave him behind. With jobs, with relationships, with careers. If not with those things, then at least they know what they _want_ and how to get it.

Grantaire doesn’t even know what he wants anymore.

Ironically, he has this message from Ange waiting for him on his phone at lunchtime: _Is there anything in particular you want from this scene that we should talk about? Something structured, like a role-play, or anything like that? Ange._

The universe really has no pity on him at all.

He takes his sandwich to the back of the break room and munches on it while he answers. _I’d feel more comfortable if we remained simply you and me, I think. As casual as we can keep it. R._

He doesn’t expect Ange to reply right away. He does, though, and for some reason that sends anxiety crackling under R’s skin. He swallows carefully, ignoring the way it feels like his throat has begun to close up. _Okay. Do you mind if I ask what kind of experiences you’ve had with bondage or pain play in the past? We talked about it a bit, at the party, but I think it’s important I know where you’re at, if you follow me. Ange._

Grantaire checks the time, and answers with a coy _No. R,_ to cover his nervousness. If he doesn’t acknowledge it, it’s not there, right?

Thankfully, Ange replies closer to the end of his break, giving him a longer space to breathe. _Okay, smart ass, ‘no’ as in no, you don’t mind me asking, or ‘no’ as in no, you’re not answering? Ange._

_I don’t mind you asking. R._

_Care to answer? Ange._

_Well. You never asked. (And I’m at work. Later.) R._

He spends the commute home trying to decide _how_ to answer. He doesn’t exactly consider himself a newbie by any stretch, he hasn’t really been living some kind of virginal, vanilla life up until this weekend, but compared to Ange, who kind of does this thing for a living? Even Grantaire’s life could look virginal next to that. Especially since most of his sexual encounters had been under the influence of _something_ , even if it was just a little buzz. Sure, it gave him the nerve at the time, but blurred the edges of the memory after the fact, and if recovery has taught him anything, it’s that that kind of thing isn’t exactly healthy. But, more to the point, even those experiences are only tangentially related to bondage or pain play, better described as kinky sex rather than the kink itself. Otherwise, his past experiences could simply be summed up in reading, research, and his own imagination.

_I’d say I’ve brushed the surface. I’ve had my hands tied, tied a few other partners’ hands, and had a particularly unfortunate disaster involving some fuzzy Valentine’s Day handcuffs. As for pain play, even less. I’ve always lived with roommates and my partners’ walls were often thin, so it’s not like I’ve had much opportunity. Just a little experimentation, here and there. R._

He gets a reply from Ange a few hours later, while he’s settled in with his laptop, ready to turn his brain off and binge watch whatever series he’s on at the moment.

_Such as? Ange._

_A particularly adventurous boyfriend and I played around with spanking, a bit. R._

He’s never actually told anyone that before. It isn’t exactly a secret, but it’s strange even still, sharing a detail of his life that no one else knows with a near stranger. He finds himself chewing on his nails.

_What was that like for you? Ange._

_It was fun. It was kind of silly, though, because that’s just the way that we were, and I don’t think I necessarily left those encounters feeling like I got everything I could from it. R._

Or everything he wanted. It had felt weird to walk away from being spanked for the first time (or two, or more) and think that it would’ve been better if it had just been _harder_. Rougher. He never brought it up, though. He didn’t know how.

The generic ding of a new notification pulls him out of his reverie. _But it was fun? Ange._

He smiles at the memory. They’d been giggling, tipsy college kids, playing at power exchange just to give it a shot. Why not? It hadn’t lasted long, but it was fun. He relished the memory. _Yes. R._

_Something you’d want to explore some more, perhaps? Ange._

_Yeah. Perhaps. R._

_This weekend? Ange._

Grantaire freezes. _Let me think about it,_ he replies, unnerved by the want that immediately unravels in his abdomen. _I’ll get back to you. All my other experiences with pain can be chalked up to scratching or biting. R._

_Don’t knock it. Scratching and biting has its appeals. Ange._

_True. If only the same could be said of fuzzy Valentine’s Day handcuffs. R._

_I assure you, my rope is much better. Ange._

_Meaner, too, from what I’ve seen. R._

_Who said I can’t play nice? Ange._

Netflix has long since been forgotten about on another tab, in favor of these messages that almost sound like flirting if Grantaire holds his breath. He does just that and holds his breath as he types out the reply, _Aren’t you a sadist? Do you even know the meaning of the word? R._

_For the sake of making sure you’re comfortable playing with me at the end of the week, I absolutely know the meaning of the word. Ange._

_What about for the sake of honesty? R._

_Rarely. Ange._

He really doesn’t know what to do with the way that makes his heartbeat trip over itself in his chest. _Sounds fun. R._

_Hm, you think so? Then don’t worry, we’ll get along just fine. Ange._

_Well, something about that sentence was oddly terrifying. R._

The conversation ends much the way it did the day before, with one last reply from Ange before R falls asleep, although this time the one word reply almost gives him chills: _Good. Ange._

The next few days go by much faster than he could have anticipated.

1\. Monday is his day off, and there’s no one in the apartment to tell him not to sleep in half the day or to put on real clothes, and if he spends the day catching up on sleep, and playing video games, (and maybe occasionally googling ‘how to negotiate a bdsm scene’ in a private browser) he won’t admit it to anyone. He does get a few texts from Éponine though.

_So, eyeliner?_

He groans quietly to himself, from under his next of blankets. He should’ve known Musichetta would mention that bit to Éponine. _Tried something new, that’s all._

_Something new that made covering for you real interesting._

He groans again, hiding his face in his blankets for a moment until he decides he’s ready to deal with it. _I’m sorry. I’ll cook dinner next time I’m over to make up for it?_

_I’m not sure even an apology is worth risking your cooking._

At least Éponine is always honest with him.

 _I’ll follow a recipe and everything,_ he promises.

_I hope your stupid was worth it._

Grantaire thinks back to the party at Threshold, to meeting Lark and Jehan. To his plans with Ange. _I think it was._ He says, after a moment. _Was yours?_

_Absolutely not._

Ah. So he has some idea what she was doing then. _Marius?_ He asks, because it usually is. He’s not exactly going to bring it up with her, but he doesn’t really understand why she’s still so hung up over him. Marius is probably The Nerdiest Person he knows, and he lives with Bossuet and Joly and himself, so that’s really saying something. Which is all to say, Marius has never struck Grantaire as Éponine’s type, mostly because (aside from a few notable exceptions, Marius very much included) Éponine’s type primarily seems to be people who _aren’t men._ But whatever. Grantaire doesn’t have to understand, he just doesn’t want her to get hurt, even if she _says_ she’s over it.

_Yeah. He’s in love with a girl he saw in a bakery exactly one (1) time. Now he wants me to help find her again._

Ouch.

_You okay?_

She says _I’m over it,_ and although Grantaire isn’t entirely convinced, he’s not about to argue with her about it. He does have some sense of self-preservation, and Éponine has put up with enough of his bullshit, he supposes he can put up with hers. _When are you making me dinner?_

Grantaire sighs and checks his schedule.

_Wednesday?_

2\. Tuesday, on the other hand, is Grantaire’s longest day, no matter the week, and consequently the day he dreads the most. He opens at the bookstore and closes the Paint-and-Party, with only the smallest break for a quick, late lunch/early dinner in between. At least the pottery studio is basically empty until the Moms show up in the evening for the paint and sip class he runs for Fantine. Apparently Tuesday afternoons aren’t the hippest of times to go paint coffee mugs and soup bowls and giant-ass serving platters, who knew? Not that he’s complaining.

(So it’s not exactly his favorite way of putting his art degree to good use, and it might not be the _best_ place to be for someone who could technically be called a recovering alcoholic, but it’s fun most of the time, and it pays better than it probably should, and Fantine is the sweetest and most considerate boss he’s ever had, so it’s worth it, really. Besides, Fantine lets him use the wheels after-hours and on his days off so long as he pays for the clay, and sometimes he really fucking misses the ceramics lab.)

In the quiet afternoon hours between his break and the class, when he’s idly sketching a new idea for the front window on a scrap piece of paper, he finds his thoughts drifting back toward Ange and his photography. He glances up, looking around the empty studio. Not exactly kid friendly material, these thoughts. But there’s no reason not to indulge in them a little bit, so long as he keeps it to himself.

He thinks of the girl in the snow he’d seen on Ange’s page, wondering how they got that shot. He imagines it probably involved good timing and a huge, heavy coat kept just off camera. No matter how you cut it, though, she must’ve been cold, even if only for a moment or two. Perhaps she liked it that way, though. Perhaps Ange liked it that way. He had called himself a sadist, at the party and on his profile, and Grantaire doesn’t know if the photo was purely staged or something _else_ or a combination of the two.

Which leads him to a very interesting question he hadn’t previously considered.

He picks up his phone and messages Ange before he can talk himself out of it. There’s nothing saying he _can’t_ message Ange first, and even less saying he shouldn’t. The whole concept of ‘not texting first because you don’t want to seem desperate’ is pretty fucked up to begin with, but sometimes he can’t help falling into that trap of thinking. He goes for it, nonetheless, loudly thinking _hashtag YOLO_ to himself while mentally jumping off an imaginary cliff, screaming all the while. _So is it my turn to ask a vaguely personal question now, then? R._

He gets the reply while he’s getting ready and setting up for the class. (This time they’re doing a simple sunset-landscape deal tonight, on canvas. Very cute. Very Bob Ross.) _I’ll bite. By all means, go ahead, but I’ll only play question for question. Ange._ It sounds an awfully lot like a challenge to Grantaire, and fool that he is, he can’t help but take it up.

He slips into the closet where the paint lives while the Moms are socializing, and types quickly back. _Do you primarily play with men, or women, or neither? I noticed people of a variety of presentations on your profile and I’ve just been curious. R._ Grantaire had marked himself as bisexual on his own page, but he’d noticed Ange doesn’t have a marker for this at all. And while he might have a little bit of a crush on Ange from their brief interactions that he is still totally ignoring, he does not want to let those feelings get out of hand (as silly as they may be) when he barely knows the man, especially if there’s even the remotest possibility Ange might be _straight_. His profile picture is of a woman, after all, and Grantaire had gone through that angst-ridden process once already, as an equally angsty teen, and he doesn’t want to bother with it ever, ever again if he can help it. Besides, he tells himself it’s important to know where they stand going in to this Saturday. This is just part of that.

The hilarity of hitting send on that message while literally coming out of the closet isn’t lost on him, although he doesn’t realize the actual mistake until a few minutes later. He won’t know if Ange has even answered him for about an hour and half, and he won’t have time to read it until even later, after the cleans up and closes shop. So now he’s just got to paint a generic but pretty sunset for a bunch of wine-tipsy middle aged women and _wonder_. As always, this is his least favorite activity. As a bonus, not only does he have to wonder, but he also gets to be quietly anxious about it the whole time. Excellent planning, Grantaire. Great forward thinking.

On the other hand, though, nothing holds his attention quite like making art does, and even if he is dealing with a bunch of wine-tipsy middle aged women, it’s a good distraction. It doesn’t stop him being anxious by any means, but at least he has something else to think about now. He checks to see if he’s got the unread message notification the first moment he can, glancing at his phone as the class begins heading out—there are two, actually, which can’t be a good sign, because what kind of answer to that question requires two whole messages? Then again, it might actually be a good sign, right? Or—

Or he’s probably thinking way too much of it. Two messages could mean anything.

Putting things away after the class has never been such a long and arduous process. It had always seemed a little Sisyphean to to him, cleaning up a pottery painting studio at the end of the day, only for it to be covered in paint yet again the next day, but now it’s somehow twice as tedious. He decides to let himself read the messages just before turning the lights out and locking up. As a reward, of sorts.

_If you’re asking me if I’m attracted to women, the answer is no, though I have tied women and photographed women, as well as many other people of various genders. I do my best to keep my photography as diverse as possible. Ange._

The next message makes the tips of Grantaire’s ears go hot.

_If you’re asking me if I’m attracted to you, though, the answer is yes. Ange._

Ah. Well. Fuck. Flustered, he quickly shoves his phone in his pocket and decides to deal with that later. Much later. Possibly tomorrow kinds of later.

(He doesn’t wait until Wednesday, but he does wait until after a late, late dinner with J and B to do so.)

 _Am I really so transparent?_ He says, which might be the most charming and/or suave he has ever managed. _Your turn. R._

He gets another twin set of messages in reply: _Shot in the dark. Ange,_ and _For my turn, will you tell me a fantasy of yours? Ange._

He quickly follows it up with a third. _Only if you’re comfortable. Ange._

Grantaire sucks in a sharp breath. He absolutely did not see that question coming, had no way of preparing for it, is left scrambling to think of an answer. Okay, then.

 _I’ve been thinking about boot worship since Sera and Lark’s demo,_ he writes, honestly. Those thoughts are just as pervasive in his head as the thoughts about Ange’s photography. It’s the easiest answer. It’s right there. _Kissing someone’s boots. Getting kicked around and taking the idea of a spit-shine very literally. That sort of thing. R._

_Oh? So you think about getting hurt, in this fantasy? Ange._

_Yes. R._

_Then I’ll have to keep that in mind, if I’m so lucky as to play with you more than once. Ange._

Grantaire replies with _That was two questions. R_ , to distract himself from the thoughts that message brings to mind. (He is not about to let the currently faceless image of his fantasies start getting a face, even if that face is beautiful and blond and apparently attracted to him.)

_I’d offer you two questions in return, but as you so astutely pointed out the other day, I don’t play nice. Your turn. Ange._

_Tell me one of yours? R._

_I have very, very recently been amused by the idea of a pretty boy kissing my boots. Ange._

Jesus. Grantaire would roll his eyes, if he weren’t busy having heart palpitations from being referred to as pretty and blushing furiously. _I think that’s cheating. R._

_Fine, fine, that’s fair. I’m not heavily into puppy play, but a recent favorite of mine is tangentially related. I like the humiliation involved, you see. I want a pretty boy to be my silly puppy, just for a night. Embarrass him, tease him, maybe spoil him a little, remind him he’d be lost without me, but there’s no pets allowed on the furniture. And if he wants something, he’ll have to beg. Ange._

_Humiliation? R._

_Mhm. There’s nothing quite like it, and I am all kinds of mean there is. Ange._

Shit.

Grantaire wonders for the first time if it’s impolite to jerk off to someone else’s fantasy, especially when you barely know them.

3\. On Wednesday, he goest straight from work, to the grocery, to Musichetta and Éponine’s place, and he tries not to think too much of Ange while cooking, lest he get distracted.

Ange is apparently very distracting.

“Are you sure you read the directions right?” Éponine asks, from where she’s perched on their kitchen table, without looking up from her phone.

“ _Yes,_ I’m sure.” He says, for what might be the third time, even though he’s not sure at all he’s doing this right. He’s currently hovering over a colander in their sink, snapping asparagus stalks. It had seemed simple enough, he just had to wash the vegetables and snap the mostly-inedible ends off. They’re supposed to always snap in the right place, but he can’t decide if he believes that or not. It’s not that he doesn’t trust the asparagus, it’s more that he doesn’t really trust his own hands to prepare food correctly, though not for lack of trying. He just has a habit of…getting distracted, and burning things beyond repair. Or misreading directions. (Or, a wild shot in the dark, it might be because, like most things he isn’t very good at, he tends to avoid cooking like his life depends on it.)

“So,” He begins again, when he gets the asparagus in the oven and sets a timer on his phone, turning his attention to the boxed pasta, “Are we going to talk about the Marius stuff?”

Éponine doesn’t answer, too busy popping her chewing gum, presumably.

He stirs the pasta, puts another pot on another eye for the sauce, and inwardly sighs before he tries again. “Ép?”

“Are we going to talk about the eyeliner stuff?”

Okay, well, low blow probably, but fair point. “Well.”

“Gav and Zel are coming over,” Éponine says, breezily changing the subject, “I hope you’re cooking enough for four.”

Grantaire looks down at the big pot of pasta. Of course he brought enough for four, he brought enough to feed four and still have leftovers. This is the usual routine, but he doesn’t say as much. That’s just the way he and Éponine work. They don’t talk about things like that like they’re something casual, and he knows that if she ever brings it up it must be serious. For example, he brings or orders her dinner, and she tells him her siblings are joining them for the night, and as always, that is something serious. More serious than Marius. So they don’t talk about Marius. Or, like when he was drowning in schoolwork and in shitty beer, and she told him he needed to get his shit together, they’ll wait until she sends the kids home or to bed.

Éponine is always honest with him. Sometimes she just doesn’t do it out loud or right away. She’s very careful about her timing.

They don’t talk about it that night, though.

JBM try to rope him into a late night experiment with whatever new tabletop RPG Joly has discovered when he gets home, which is hard to resist. “Dude, come on!” Joly says, when Grantaire declines, “It’s from Japan, and it’s like Stardew Valley if Stardew Valley was a D&D session, and it sounds adorable.”

Grantaire pauses in his doorway, drawn back to their little coffee table like a puppet on a string, where the three of them are already set up with their dice. “What’s it called?”

“ _Ryuutama!_ ”

“You feed your adventure to a hungry dragon,” Bossuet adds, helpfully. Grantaire doesn’t know how he manages to sound so excited. Bossuet has consistently gotten terrible rolls no matter the game or the dice, and out of the four of them, even with as much as they play together, he’s the only one who’s had multiple characters die in-game due to unfortunately timed crit-fails.

“You what?”

“Okay, so!” Joly begins, and excitedly explains the concept of the game to him. It does sound adorable. But Grantaire’s tiredness is a compelling deterrent, and their games tend to take twice as long as they ever expect, when they finally manage to get everyone together to play. He drags a tired hand down his face.

“I’m sorry, not tonight, my work schedule’s destroying me this week.”

“That’s alright,” Joly says, though he deflates a little, and Musichetta kisses his forehead. “I’m doing the children’s museum tomorrow anyway, and Bossuet has class.”

Grantaire knows Joly’s not trying to guilt him, but he feels bad anyway. So he offers his best attempt at a compromise. “Want to watch an episode of that docu-series about dogs instead?”

Their apartment is a home full of routine, silly little rituals, and big, sentimental traditions. One of these silly little rituals involves all of them cramming onto the couch for an episode of the most heartwarming show they can find, when one of the group is feeling down. It’s been a tradition of theirs for years, and it’s one that Musichetta flawlessly joined when the triad started dating. That had certainly been an eventful year in their college days. Grantaire had just switched his focus for the second time and he was on academic probation after his grades hit their first wall, Bossuet’s roommate was constantly disappearing, and Joly was developing feelings for Bossuet’s new girlfriend—on top of the feelings he already felt for his best friend.

It worked out in the end, though, Grantaire supposes. They pile onto the couch, all wrapped in the comforter from Boss and Joly’s bed, and quietly tear up together about an Italian fisherman and his Labrador.

4\. Somehow, Thursday is the first morning he realizes that he’s actually made real plans for Saturday and those plans might really be happing in roughly 50 real life hours or so, give or take. He writes Ange over a bowl of cereal, trying to pretend like this is completely commonplace and not weird or surreal to him at all. _I think I should tell you that I’m not comfortable completely undressing. R._

It’s good to be able to set his own boundaries in clear, consistent ways, a voice in his head that’s probably from therapy tells him as he does, which is fitting, because Thursdays are group therapy days, even though they’re not meeting this evening. He and Bahorel are going to the gym together this morning, before his shift at the bookstore, in lieu it.

_I understand. Thank you for bringing it up. Removing your shirt is all the undressing necessary. Aside from that, it’s however you feel more comfortable. If you like, I’ll undress to the same level. Whatever makes you comfortable. Ange._

_That would help quite a lot, I think. R._ Yeah. Not weird or surreal at all. Grantaire lets out a slow exhale. It’s odd. A part of him seems to think that Ange is simply too good to be true, and at some point he’s going to say something and Ange is going to show his true colors or something. He’s not consciously distrustful, or so he thinks. But years of pessimism and depression might simply do that to a guy, making disbelief his default. So far, though, Ange keeps proving that skeptical part of Grantaire wrong. Sometimes people tend to do that, whether he wants to believe it or not.

_Is there anything else that you are explicitly uncomfortable with? Ange._

_I already told you I don’t really do blindfolds. I don’t really do gags, either. I know you mentioned it before, but if we could stay away from any kind of humiliation, that would be great as well. R._

_Of course. None of those are things I would do without establishing a relationship with someone first. Do you mind specifying what in particular qualifies as humiliation for you? Ange._

Relationship. That could really mean anything. Grantaire’s eyes still catch on the word and stick until he pulls himself away to reply.

_Well, specifically, I don’t want to be called any names. ‘Whore’ or ‘slut’ or anything like that. I don’t know if it’s relevant or not, but I thought I should mention it. That’s all, really. R._

_Absolutely. Do you have any qualms about pet names? Sweetheart, darling, that sort of thing? What about gentle teasing, is that off the table as well? Ange._

_No, that’s fine._ Grantaire answers, as if he’s not resisting the urge to scream bout a message like that. Sweetheart, darling. Jesus, fuck. _It’s your turn for questions now. R._

_What are you doing right now? Ange._

_Eating breakfast._ Even though what’s left of his cereal is quickly becoming far too soggy. _That was an innocuous one. Are you going easy on me? R._

_Is that your next question? Ange._

_Is that yours? R._

He laughs a few minutes later, when Ange says _Still just as much of a smart ass in the mornings, I see. Ange._

_More so. R._

_I believe it’s your turn next, then. Ange._

Grantaire spends the rest of his morning routine carefully mulling over what question he wants to ask Ange. They’ve only been playing this question game for a few days but he finds himself coming up with new questions to ask in his spare moments. If only he remembered to type them out or write them own when he thought of them. _Have you always known you were a sadist? R._

_No. I have always known that I like to be in control, however. I have been told I have a habit of getting a little neurotic about things. Rope and domination is a good outlet for that, I think. Keeps me from subconsciously trying to micro-manage my friends, at least. Which I do completely out of love, mind you. It’s a misplaced display of affection, sure, but it’s affection nonetheless. Ange._

Interesting. You’d think Grantaire, in contrast, who frequently loses control over absolutely everything in his life and therefore finds trying to control anything ultimately pointless, would not enjoy giving his own control up. For the most part, though, he thinks he’d prefer it. Which is not to say he doesn’t think he’d enjoy dominance to some extent, he definitely does. It’s just…different. _I suppose sadism is just a fun little bonus, then? R._

_Well, that’s an adorable way of looking at it, I suppose you could say so. I think it naturally grew from my interest in everything else. Next question: What’s something you want to try but never have? Ange._

He’s catching on to Grantaire, because he quickly adds _to specify, I mean something kink-related_ , stopping Grantaire just before he can hit send on a message about sky-diving and swimming with dolphins.

_That’s very similar to your fantasy question. R._

_I’m aware. Ange._

_Alright. Let me think. R._

Bahorel asks what’s on Grantaire’s mind that’s keeping him distracted and he tries very hard to keep his ears from turning red with the sheer power of his will. “Nothing,” he says, unsure if he succeeds or not. Rel, for his part, looks skeptical but doesn’t ask again.

The answer comes to him while he’s in the shower. _Clover clamps. R._

_Well, aren’t you something. I thought you said you were wary of jumping straight into the deep end. Ange._

_Like many children who visit a pool for the first time, I like the deep end in theory. R._

_Careful, you’ll tempt me to put that to the test after we try playing with candles. Ange._

_Fine with me. I rather like the idea of playing with fire. Mostly metaphorically. R._

_You’re full of surprises. Ange._

That sounds like a compliment to Grantaire. _Thank you. My turn. What are you doing right now? R._

_Work things. Please feel free to distract me. Anything else you know you want to try? Ange._

_I’ve always liked the idea of something like a physical takedown. R._

After he hits send, Grantaire feels his heart rate beginning to rise yet again, despite himself, along with the butterflies of texting someone he’s attracted to. A familiar feeling that he’s long since learned to hate. The subject matter doesn’t help.

_Elaborate? Ange._

_Fighting for control, even if I know I’m meant to lose. Safely, of course. Physically pushing and getting pushed back. R._

_Getting put in your place? Ange._

Grantaire has to close his eyes and hold his breath for a second to compose himself, taken by surprise by an electric shock of arousal. _Yeah_ , he writes back when he can manage it.

_How very switchy of you. Ange._

_I’ve been informed that’s probably a pretty accurate label for me. R._

_I certainly think so. Ange._

For some reason, that reminds Grantaire of the reading he’d been doing. _Oh, for the record. What kind of aftercare things will you need from me? R._

_Good question. I’m not very high maintenance, I like some physical closeness immediately afterwards, and some kind of communication over the next few days. Not necessarily cuddling, or anything like that, a good hug will suffice. Is that alright? Ange._

_Yes. I can do that. R._

_Is there anything aside from that you’ll need from me? Ange._

_No, I don’t think so. I think that sounds like enough for me. R._

_Good. Thank you for asking, and for letting me know. Be sure to drink plenty of water between now and Saturday, by the way. Wax is easiest to clean off your skin if you’re well hydrated. Ange._

5\. On Friday the first thing he does is get up and drink a glass of water in one go. He tells himself that this is something he usually does in the mornings, and that he’d woken up feeling a little bit parched anyway. (He is almost definitely lying to himself.)

He finds a message from Ange waiting for him on his phone, sent at some ridiculously odd hour. He wonders when the hell the man sleeps. It’s only been a week, but still, R has no idea how to guess when he’ll get a response from Ange and when he won’t. The message reads _Would you mind clarifying what kind of touching you’re comfortable with for Saturday? For example, hair-pulling, scratching, etc. Ange._

Grantaire thinks about this while he sips a second glass of water much more slowly. _Hair-pulling and scratching are a definite yes, actually, but I want to be sure to give slapping a hard no. R._ He thinks for a moment then shortly adds, _Not anything below the waistband, preferably. R._

_So that’s a no to a spanking, then? Ange._

Um. _Yeah. R._

_No sexual contact, either, just to be clear? Ange._

Grantaire isn’t sure what to say to that. On the one hand, the last time he had sex was over a year ago, and there was probably little liquor involved, and so he’s not entirely comfortable promising anything like that. Which is entirely why he’d just sent that last message.

On the other hand, of course, is the fact that he kind of wants to say yes. His conversations with Ange over the past week have inspired him to jack off a little more frequently than usual. Not that he’s counting. (This is, once again, probably a lie.)

 _Not this time_ , he says. _R._

_This time? Ange._

He really is suddenly very thirsty. He puts his phone down and finishes his drink in a couple of big gulps. _Another time, maybe. R._

He receives another _Good_ and a smiley face by way of response, which is a particularly novel experience that he can’t quite interpret.

He ends up taking more trips to the restroom during his shift at the bookstore than he ever has before, though.

6\. All of a sudden, it’s Saturday, and he’s got no idea how to handle it. Éponine brings the twins to the Paint-And-Party early that morning, and he’s immensely grateful for the distraction, because the anxiety of returning to Threshold is beginning to make him itch. The studio isn’t empty, by any means, but he leaves the other customers to their own devices for a moment to say hi.

“How’s my favorite customer doing?” He says cheerfully, to which Éponine holds up a finger and takes a sip of her coffee before she even looks at him. They really do seem to rub off on each other. It’s hilarious. “Don’t worry, I was talking to Gavroche.”

Éponine discreetly flips him off.

“Finally, someone who knows their shit.” Gavroche says just as cheerfully but far too loudly, grabbing a mug off the shelves and making the other ceramics around it rattle in a particularly terrifying way that definitely shaves some years off of R’s life.

“Language.” Éponine says, though there’s really no heat in it, and Grantaire struggles not to laugh.

“Why? You just flipped him off.”

“There are children here, and I did it quietly.”

“Fine.” Gavroche says, then repeats in a whisper, “Finally, someone who knows their _fucking_ shit.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes and nudges him toward the paint, where Azelma is already picking out colors for her own mug. When he’s gone, and the two kids begin arguing over which colors go with which, he turns back to Éponine. “Are you still working at the shop today?” He asks.

(By which he really means, ‘are you okay?’)

“Yeah, I go in at noon.” She says.

(By which he hopes she really means, ‘I’m fine,’ but her eyes stay glued on her siblings, and he doesn’t know how to translate that.)

“I teach the class this afternoon, they can stay for that, if you want, and I’ll bring them home when Fantine comes in.” He offers. “I’ll get Azelma to help me start changing out the window displays. Fantine loved her ideas with the miniatures last time, I’m sure she won’t mind.”

She’s only thirteen, but Azelma reminds Grantaire so much of Éponine. She’s just like how R imagines a little Éponine must have been, quiet and watchful, doodling constantly, on tables or her arms or her shoes. She loves her art classes, and she watches out for Gav even if they argue every other breath. He’s never seen a pair of siblings like the two of them.

“And Gavroche will shatter all the plates, probably.” Éponine says, though she’s fighting back a smile.

Correction. He’s never seen a trio of siblings like the three of them.

They love each other, deeply, and they aren’t afraid to show it, or to knock someone’s teeth out about it.

Grantaire loves them, too. He’s not part of their family, but he’s something, and he’d fight for them just the same.

“Well, Zel will find something for him to do, I’m sure.”

Gavroche has all the charms and gangly limbs of the usual thirteen-year-old boy, but he never has any qualms about hugging his sisters goodbye or letting Éponine kiss his forehead. And give Azelma a job to do, and she’ll quickly commandeer Gav into helping her, and he’ll be as careful about it as R’s ever seen him.

“Thanks, R.” Éponine says, quietly, after a moment of silent thought. “Just bring them by the shop after, worst comes to worst, they’ll watch a bunch of stupid youtube videos on their phones.”

It’s not the first time R’s kept the kids busy while Éponine’s working the desk at the tattoo shop for her apprenticeship, and it won’t be the last, he’s sure, but he has to leave them alone for a while to tend to the other customers who don’t know what they’re doing. He shows Azelma his idea for the window, after they finish their mugs, and leaves them to it.

He explains the process about a thousand times before he can get back to them: pick some bisqueware, bring it to the front and pay for it, then pick out paints. Make sure to paint with light colors first, and wash your brushes between colors. There are a shocking amount of parents who seem to think he runs a daycare when he has to work weekends, leaving their kids here while they shop elsewhere, and he comes dangerously close to losing all the merchandise twice as many times as usual. It’s not doing anything for his anxiety.

It’s busy and loud by the time Fantine shows up, and it must show on his face how frazzled Grantaire is, overwhelmed by a birthday party leaving, other kids arriving for class, and his phone nearly burning a hole in his pocket as a reminder of what he’s supposed to be doing that evening. She sends him out early, taking over for the class and waving off his thanks. “Just bring those kids around to do the windows again sometime, and I’ll consider us even. I want that girl to get every chance she gets to experiment. I like her style almost as much as yours.”

Fantine has always had such a comforting smile. It always makes R smile back.

Gavroche tells him about whichever video game is taking over youtube lately while Grantaire walks them to the tattoo shop, and Grantaire feigns ignorance just to get under his skin.

“Is that like the Fort-craft game?”

“Are you trying to say Fortnite, or Minecraft? Because only one of those is even barely relevant.”

“No, I mean Fort- _craft_.” He says again, adamantly, pushing open the door to the shop, finding Éponine with a customer. He continues to argue with Gavroche about this imaginary video game that he insists is the highest streaming game on twitch until Gav nearly goes red-faced, and Azelma sits nearby and rolls her eyes, flipping idly through one of the artists’ portfolios before pulling her own sketchbook out of her bag.

“Gav, he’s shitting you.” Éponine says, when she’s done giving the customer the unfortunate news that her nose piercing has grown back, interrupting him.

“Am I allowed to swear now that there are no children present?”

Éponine shrugs.

“ _Asshole_.”

Grantaire just laughs. “Sorry, kiddo. Couldn’t help it.” He glances at the clock on the wall and remembers once again, all at once, that he’s supposed to go back to Threshold and meet Ange, in person, in less than a few hours. It doesn’t get any less overwhelming the more he remembers.

His first thought is that he doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s going to wear.

His second thought is that it’s hilarious that he hasn’t had to worry about that in ages, since he’d stopped bothering with trying to date.

Not that this is a date, really. Or maybe it is? Whatever it is, he’s trying not to question it too much.

“Hey,” He begins, suddenly, propping himself up against the counter when it’s free, “Do you still have that find my friends thing set up for me on your phone?”

“Yeah. Why?” Éponine pauses to look up at him.

“Just in case something goes wrong. I’m going to uh…another party type thing tonight. I just want to be careful.” She studies him for a moment. It’s not the same kind of concern he’d see form Joly, or Bossuet, but it’s something, and he offers her a reassuring smile. “See? I’m being _careful_. If I wasn’t being careful, I wouldn’t have asked.”

She doesn’t bring up the fact that he went to the same kind of party last week and didn’t ask her then, but to be fair, he didn’t think that far ahead last week.

“Don’t even think about calling me to pick you up if you get your own stupid ass into trouble.” She says, breezily. “Call a fucking Uber unless it’s an emergency.”

“No drinks! I promise.”

“Fine. If you want to be careful, then actually be careful.”

Grantaire leans over the desk to press a kiss to Éponine’s cheek with a loud, melodramatic _mwah_ and she shoves him away with a sound of disgust. “Love you.” He says, more sincerely.

“Love you too, dickhead.”

“If we’re all good here, I’m gonna go ahead and head out.” He says, at the same time the phone rings. Éponine gives him a thumbs up as she answers it.

“Wait, one more thing.” Gav says pulling out one of his earbuds as Grantaire passes. “Why the _fuck_ are you peeing so much? Do you need to see a doctor or something?”

Jesus.

7\. It’s Saturday evening and Grantaire is leaning over the sink at the apartment, with his small assortment of drugstore makeup, listening to a beauty blogger explain how to smudge his eyeliner for a grungy look and trying to decide if all this trouble is worth it. Then again, it might be too late now. He should’ve bought some damn remover.

The end result is not necessarily…bad. He doesn’t wear it with the same confidence as Lark or Jehan, sure, but he thinks he could see the appeal. He likes the way it draws attention to his eyes, he supposes. Though if he looks much longer he’s going to start drawing comparisons between himself and like, early 2000s-era goths, and then he’s going to lock himself in the bathroom until he manages to scrub it all off, and he does not have time for that. It’s not required or anything, they don’t really have a dress code at Threshold, but it’s also not like he has anything even vaguely resembling fetishwear. For that matter, his most-confident outfit is a pair of old jeans and a flannel (because it’s the most comfy) and he’s not about to wear that out. So the t-shirt and nice jeans and makeup it is.

Which is fine. He’s fine.

 

 

* * *

 

He is not fine.

He’s freaking out little bit. He suppose the feeling might be comforting in its familiarity, if he weren’t busy, you know, _quietly losing his shit._ Ange is already inside, he’d messaged R a while back to say as much, along with another message that just says _Looking forward to it_ with another indecipherable and unexpected smiley face. So here he is again, standing in front of Threshold and trying not to hyperventilate.

It’s not as crowded as it was the week before, apparently it never is on a regular night, but there is still an almost steady trickle of people going inside, friends greeting each other and couples laughing together as they go inside. Grantaire can’t decide if fewer people is more of a stressor or a comfort. Once again, he finds himself facing the same dilemma of deciding if not going in is worth not knowing.

In the end the fear of not-knowing wins, though just barely.

He messages Ange back, to say _Here. Just a minute._ That way he has no choice but to follow through. He just has to get himself back under control again.

Somewhere between three to five to ten minutes later, Ange steps outside to look for him, presumably tired of waiting.

“Sorry,” is the first word out of Grantaire’s mouth, which is not quite a greeting, and his anxiety must show on his face, because Ange looks at him, perplexed for the space of a heartbeat, before he seems to figure out what’s happening.

“Hey.” He says, softly, and Grantaire knows he is going to be incredibly embarrassed about this later. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” R says, which is probably the most obvious and most overused lie of his life.

Then Ange asks him a question he couldn’t possibly have seen coming: “Can I hug you?”

He blinks back at him for a moment, stunned, certain that he’s misheard or misunderstood or something, his brain doing a spot-on imitation of a cartoon robot chanting DOES NOT COMPUTE and slowly shutting down. “What?”

“Can I hug you?” Ange repeats, apparently a man of infinite patience. There is no pity on his face, as if he felt bad for Grantaire, no held-back laughter as if it were joke, nothing but the slightest bit of concern.

Grantaire is so shocked he’s knocked out of his downward spiral, and can only stand there in confused silence before finally remembering how to speak. “Uh. Yeah?”

Ange does smile then, just one corner of his mouth twisting upwards, lips pressed together. “I’m going to need a definitive yes or no here, R.”

“…Yes.”

“Good. Come here.” His smile brightens, and he steps toward Grantaire in the same motion that he reaches for him to pull him close, wrapping his arms around R’s shoulders. He’s taller than R, because of course he is, and it feels natural to hide his face against Ange’s shoulder. Hesitantly, he returns the hug, the act of holding and being held strangely intimate here, with this almost-stranger, with no one else around. “This is my cue to remind you that everything about this is up to you.”

“I know.” Grantaire says, voice muffled against his shoulder.

“You can go home right now, if you like.”

“I know.”

“I absolutely will not ask you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I _know_.” Grantaire says, once more, with a huff of laughter.

Ange runs his hand up and down Grantaire’s back in a comforting gesture before pulling away to look at his face. “Good. It’s always worth repeating just once more. Now, what would make you feel most comfortable? Do you want to call it off for today, or try another time, maybe?”

“No, I’m okay. I want to do this.”

The full force of Ange’s smile is a little bit blinding, but he takes Grantaire’s hand in his and laces their fingers together. Somehow he makes this feel like the most natural thing in the world. “Then let’s go in, shall we?”

Once inside, someone cheerfully calls his name, and Grantaire is struck by the singular experience of being remembered when you don’t really expect to be. When he turns to look, Ange lets their hands go, and he is briefly disappointed for the loss.

Lark waves at him, a DM badge hanging on a lanyard around her neck. (Grantaire finds this endlessly amusing. The DMs supervise the play area on a rotation, one or two a night, making sure that Threshold’s rules are being followed and everyone is playing safely. Thus they hold the apt title of Dungeon Master, the moniker borrowed from Dungeons and Dragons. If anyone needed proof that the people in this scene were still complete nerds, there it was.) Across the room, she yells “Good to see you!” R smiles and waves back.

Ange reappears by Grantaire’s shoulder, pressing a hand to the small of his back with the casual air of someone very familiar. “Water?” He presses another plastic cup into Grantaire’s hands, tilting his head towards Grantaire’s ear to be heard better. As if they were in a crowded bar instead of the small crowd of Threshold’s Saturday nights. “There’s no rush, tonight. You just let me know when you’re ready. I’m content to wait until then. Understand?”

Grantaire nods, trying not to grip the flimsy cup too tightly, feeling it crinkle a bit in his hands.

“Good. Last question. Would you be more comfortable in the main room, where you’ll be in full view of the DMs and they will be sure I don’t do anything untoward, or would you prefer to be in one of the private rooms? We can even keep the door cracked, if you like, that way they can still come around and check on you.”

“Private room.” Grantaire says, after only the slightest moment of hesitation. Taking off his shirt in front of Ange is one thing. Taking off his shirt in front of potentially everyone is something else altogether.

Ange nods. “Okay, I’ll go ask to save us one in an hour. We don’t have to play then, immediately, but I will check in with you then and we can move the time if you’re not ready at that point. Good?”

“Good.” He says, trying to sound decisive.

“Good.” Ange says, once more, still smiling at Grantaire as he leaves to go speak with someone. In the meantime, Grantaire wanders over too Lark to say hi.

When he gets there, she simply smirks at him. It reminds him a little too much of Éponine.

“What?” he asks, as if he has no idea what she’s smiling about, as if he’s not fighting back his own smile.

“I heard someone’s playing for the first time tonight.” She says, conspiratorially.

“Oh? Who would that be?”

She punches his arm lightly. (Now _that’s_ not very Éponine. She’d have slugged him.) “With Ange, too! Lucky you.”

“I’m not sure I would call it luck.” Grantaire says, because he has no clue what this arrangement with Ange adds up to, because even though he’d expressed interest in Grantaire, Grantaire still isn’t entirely sure what kind of tone a bit of wax play gives to their relationship—and he uses the term extremely loosely. He’s not sure at all, but he thinks that this probably doesn’t count as something even resembling a first date.

Nonetheless, Lark says, “I would. He spent the fifteen minutes before you got here asking about you.”

Grantaire’s brain does that imitation of a cartoon robot again. “He…what?”

“He seems very excited to play with you.” Lark says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “He wanted to know if we were friends.”

“He did?”

“I told him we were, but that I’d only known you as long as he has.”

Grantaire can only smile. “So, uh…” he starts, but he’s grinning so hard he can hardly manage the words, like a kid finding out his crush might like-like him back, “He’s safe to play with, right? Someone would tell me if he wasn’t?”

Lark laughs and leans to kiss him on the forehead before nudging him away, back towards the rest of the room. “Yes, that’s what community is for. Now, go on, R. You have my fondest blessing. Go find your new playmate and have fun.”

 

 

* * *

 

They decide to keep the door cracked.

“How’re you feeling? Still nervous?” Ange asks, and Grantaire shrugs, unsure what to do with his hands. It’s a little weird standing there in only his boxers watching a man he’s met, like, _once_ unbuttoning his own shirt. Grantaire is made very, very aware that he doesn’t really do things like this.

It’s been a while, that’s all. Not that this is like anything he’s ever done before, really.

“You’ve seen the inside of my bag,” he continues, and Grantaire has, that was the first thing Ange did once they came back to this room, showing him all the things he carries with him to Threshold, proving he didn’t have anything more frightening than safety shears with him. It was meant to be reassuring, but the jury of Grantaire’s mind is still out on if it was or not. “And you know you can opt out of this any time you like, yes? Just say ‘red.’”

Ange folds his clothes and sets them beside his duffel in a much neater pile than Grantaire’s own. He turns to raise an eyebrow at R a moment later, and Grantaire realizes he hasn’t answered out loud, only nodded. He clears his throat awkwardly. “Yes. I know.”

He watches Ange dig through his bag before producing a bundle of black rope, a bottle of oil, and three candles, all of them red. That is all. Grantaire can breathe. He’s in the most control of this situation, after all. He decides if they’re going to continue, if they’re going to stop. “Here, feel the rope.” Ange says, passing R the bundle. “It’s cotton, softer than hemp or jute, and stretchier. I brought it just for you, you should feel special.” He smiles, and haltingly, Grantaire smiles back. “If I do anything you don’t want that we haven’t discussed, you tell me, and I’ll stop. Can I just trust you to do that, R?”

“Yes.” Grantaire says, on a short exhale, nearly rolling his eyes. Ange quirks the same eyebrow at him and he is suddenly and abruptly reminded that he’s agreed to make himself very, very vulnerable in this little room. Not that he thinks Ange would do anything to him (that R didn’t agree to), he’d just said as much. He knows he wouldn’t. Like he just said.

Still, it has what must be its intended effect, that eyebrow, because Ange’s reassuring smile turns a little less bright and a little more sharp.

“Come here.” He says, quietly, and there’s nothing particularly different about his tone, but still Grantaire can feel that something in the air has shifted. It is not a question or a request. It’s an order. A command. Grantaire resolutely ignores the feeling of his heart thumping against his ribcage and does as he’s told. Nonetheless, he can’t close the distance between them completely, feeling too much like a wild animal that might bolt at any second. There is a voice in his head whispering in time with his heartbeat: _bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, what the hell are you doing, bad idea._ This doesn’t seem to faze Ange, who may have noticed, what with the way his eyes never waver from Grantaire’s face, but he doesn’t react beyond stepping into R’s personal space himself. He tilts his head to one side, holding Grantaire’s gaze as if he could keep him from looking away by sheer force of his will. “Do you understand what I’m going to do to you, tonight?”

Maybe he can.

Grantaire nods and breathes out another “Yes.”

“Good.” Ange grins and unfurls the coil of rope in his hands. “Give me your wrists.”

This time Grantaire can’t ignore the way his heartbeat stumbles over itself, and he moves quickly, not letting himself have the space to think beyond doing what is asked of him so he doesn’t start talking himself out of it. Which, honestly, feels a bit like ignoring his own survival instincts, and maybe it is. (There is still about 20% of him that is not entirely convinced he’s not going to die somehow in Threshold. But hey, at least Éponine will know where he is if he does.) He holds his hands in fists out in front of him, between Ange and himself, knuckles pressed together. The other man puts his hands on top of Grantaire’s and separates them by a couple of inches. There’s something about it—the first time Ange touches him is to tie him up. It knocks R a little off balance. There’s a joke there about how he could’ve at least bought him dinner first, but he’s too focused on keeping his hands stead to make it.

“Hold them there. Keep the tension.” Ange says, looping his rope around R’s wrists. Grantaire find his own thoughts giving a running commentary while watching Ange’s hands as he makes short work of tying his wrists, his practice and skill evident in the fluidity of his movements: this is a double column tie, the two columns involved being his wrists, binding them together. The couple of beginner’s rope tutorials Grantaire had watched on the internet had not made this seem overly complicated, but still. He doesn’t think he can really be blamed for being a little mesmerized. He still can’t really believe this is happening. He would not be surprised if he woke up right about now. The past week had been a blur that culminated in this moment—if he was ever going to wake up, it would be now. But there are ropes around his wrists and messages on his phone to prove otherwise, as well as a Threshold membership card tucked safely inside his wallet. He’d paid for it after that first night, just as he had decided to go in the first place: quickly, impulsively, before he had too much time to convince himself it was a bad idea. Apparently that’s just his usual way of doing things, these days. When he glances up, he finds Ange watching him and quickly drops his gaze away, embarrassed by the other man’s close scrutiny.

“Okay?” He asks, his hands settling on Grantaire’s forearms now.

“Yeah.” Grantaire answers, watching as Ange’s hands begin moving again after his confirmation, sliding up to his shoulders. He closes his eyes and feels fingers tangle in his hair, gentle at first, then harsher, tugging his head back and making it a little difficult to breathe.

“So,” Ange begins, conversationally, as if he isn’t standing there partially naked with a fistful of Grantaire’s hair, “What do you think? Should we start on your back or on your chest? There’s obviously more…sensitive areas I could play with on your front, but on your back you won’t get to see it coming. Preference?”

Grantaire has to open his eyes.

“Um.” They’d talked about it, before, though Ange hadn’t asked his preference, like he is now. “My back?”

“What, not even a please?” Ange says, a singsong quality to his voice, pulling Grantaire’s hair until he hisses through his teeth. “I ought to make you pay for that. If I hadn’t promised not to make this a particularly painful experience, I’d have such a fun time punishing you for your lack of manners. Would you like to try again?” There’s something about the word ‘punish’ and Ange’s tone that sends a chill through Grantaire despite himself. Briefly, he imagines himself bound and beaten and bruised, like someone out of Ange’s portfolio. (The very same online portfolio that R had probably scrolled through multiple times at this point, daydreaming. Not that anyone needed to know that. He’s going to keep that very much to himself.) Ange snaps his fingers in front of Grantaire’s face and brings him back to the present. “What do you say, R?”

“Please.” Grantaire says, and Ange’s grip in his hair loosens a little, the fingertips of his free hand tracing the edge of Grantaire’s jaw.

“In full sentences if you please, my dear.”

Grantaire’s tongue has never felt so clumsy in his mouth before. “Start with my back, please. Sir.”

Ange laughs, and Grantaire feels an embarrassed heat begin to creep up the back of his neck. It had been 50/50 bet, he supposed, tacking the honorific onto the end of his sentence to test the waters. But he still doesn’t know what he’s doing. That much is obvious. “That’s cute.” Ange says. “But unnecessary. Save your ‘sir’s for when I actually punish you.”

 _When_ , he says. Not _if_ , but _when_. Grantaire ought to be offended by how presumptuous that is, probably, and he tells himself he would be if it was someone else. The threat of a _punishment_ at the hands of _this_ man is too intoxicating, pulled straight from one of his most twisted fantasies or one of his nightmares, in only the best way possible.

Despite Grantaire’s resistance, apparently Ange fits perfectly comfortably in his fantasies.

If he asked Grantaire to do another scene with him after this, R would most certainly say yes. He’d probably say yes to a lot of things if Ange asked, right now. He tries not to follow that train of thought any further and nods instead, slowly, bringing his attention back to the hand in his hair and forcing his tongue to cooperate with him. “Understood.”

“Good boy.” He hears his own breath catch after that, and evidently Ange hears it too because his knife’s blade smirk widens even further. He practically coos in amusement, “Oh, you liked that, did you?”

“Yes.” Grantaire says, because he can’t even try to deny the way the phrase and Ange’s grin are definitely…doing things to him. Besides. Communication and shit’s important. Right? Right.

“Good.” Ange says, and begins to direct Grantaire to move by the hand in his hair, pushing him over to the table in the center of the room. “I’ll keep that in mind. Now, be a good boy…” He chuckles quietly, which sends a different kind of heat prickling under R’s skin, “And lay down on your stomach, hands above your head. Yes, that’s it, very good.” Grantaire can still hear the smirk in his voice, even as he feels Ange securing the working ends of the rope to something beneath the table, probably designed especially for this purpose. The hand in his hair returns and tugs his head back until it nearly strains his neck, a quiet, strangled groan escaping him. “ _Very_ good. How do your hands feel?”

He twists his wrists a little, the cotton rope allowing him a little give, but not enough for him to properly bend his elbows, and the loops around his wrists don’t tighten when he does. He can even grip the very edge of the table, which is great, because it gives him something to focus on that isn’t the way Ange is looking at him like he’s his next meal. “Good.” He says, and lets his head fall with relief when Ange lets go of his hair. He hears Ange move away to retrieve his things and he turns his head to one side in an attempt to watch him through his peripheral vision. A moment later he feels the other man’s hands on his shoulders again, not exactly gently but not rough by any means, running them down along the ridges of his spine and then back up again, covering every inch of skin.

“Oil.” He says, voice quiet but still in that _tone_ that Grantaire finds himself quickly, quickly growing fond of. He can’t help wondering if that’s something that Ange has practiced or if it’s something that just comes naturally. Is it a demeanor that just comes with the territory, of being comfortably in control? Or, is it something you have to work on getting just right? “It’ll make it easier to clean the wax off, once we’re done. Plus it gives me an excuse to put my hands all over you, which I have to admit I have been wanting to do…” His touch pauses on the small of Grantaire’s back and R has to turn his head to look at him. Ange meets his gaze evenly, anticipating it. “Would it make you uncomfortable if I joined you on the table? I’d have to straddle your hips. If not, I’ll stand here like I am now.”

Grantaire holds his breath, hearing the blood pumping in his ears for a moment, trying to decide if he’s alright with the thought of having his hands tied while pinned beneath the weight of Ange’s body.

“Color is fine. You won’t hurt my feelings any way you choose. Red, yellow, or green?”

“Green.”

Ange ruffles his hair gently, offering R a pleased smile by way of reward. “Very good boy.”

R shivers, closing his eyes again. In the space of a couple of breaths, Ange climbs up on the table, knees on either side of Grantaire, and resumes the task of working oil into his skin, leisurely but efficient, taking his time with the process but not wasting any. Grantaire wonders if he’s always like that or if he’s just trying not to spook him, as if R might panic and call the whole thing off at any minute. Then again, Grantaire’s pulse is as erratic as someone’s who might panic and call this whole thing off at any minute.

Somehow, though, Ange becomes a comforting presence at his back, his weight pressing him down and hands grounding him.

Then he hears the flick of a lighter.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Ange says, ignoring the way Grantaire tenses in anticipation, if he notices, “I’ll start dripping from higher up, then get closer. You tell me when it’s just almost too hot. Be honest.”

Something not unlike fear makes Grantaire’s chest seize, (a _thrill_ , he’ll realize, later) and then heat blossoms across his shoulder—the wax, unexpectedly. The feeling dissipates as quickly as it comes, but then it’s replaced by another, hotter droplet nearby. They repeat this process for a moment, until the heat of the wax makes Grantaire gasp and his muscles twitch. “There,” he says, breathlessly and a little dazedly.

“Perfect.” Ange murmurs, as more heat makes its way across his shoulders, another kind of heat making its way elsewhere, the sensation not quite blending together enough to let Grantaire catch his breath.

“ _Ah_.” He says, with emphasis, and he jumps when Ange laughs at the same time the liquid wax hits his skin again, burning just as hot as the arousal pooling in his stomach.

“‘Ah,’ indeed. You like it?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“Good boy.” God, that phrase makes Grantaire shudder like nothing else. He grips the edge of the table and lightly thumps his forehead against it, which makes Ange laugh again. “Something the matter?”

He shakes his head.

“Words, please.”

“ _God_ , no.”

“Hm. Just checking.” For a moment the dripping stops. When R opens one eye to see what’s going on, he finds Ange cupping a hand under the candle, catching the wax before it lands on Grantaire’s back. When he sees Grantaire looking, he grins. “Merely keeping you on your toes, sweetheart. Nothing to worry about. You can close your eyes again if you like.”

Grantaire works his jaw, feeling as if the words to speak are just barely out of reach. “That didn’t sound very believable.”

“Aw, I’m wounded.” Ange says, though he’s chuckling as he swipes his thumb through a small puddle of wax, spreading the heat but also making it disappear faster. “You just don’t trust me because I said I was a sadist.”

“Well.” Grantaire says, breath hitching as Ange trails the wax lower down his back, a haphazard line of droplets across the small of his back, and then back up again. “Can you blame me?”

“Absolutely not. Smart boy. Now, be very still.” After a minute more of this, this exquisite kind of torture Grantaire didn’t even know existed but might never be able to live without anymore, he blows out the candle, then runs his fingers up R’s back, and Grantaire is hyperaware of even the slightest brush of his fingers over the thin layer of the now-cooled wax. Then, just as casually, he scratches the wax off with his nails, hard enough to leave marks. R sucks in a shaky breath, groaning through his teeth and involuntarily jerking away. Ange lets out an appreciative hum. “I liked that. You can do that again.”

“You did that on purpose.” It comes out far more shaky than accusatory.

“What, would you rather I have done it on accident?”

“…No.”

“I didn’t think so. Where were we?” There’s the sound of the lighter again, then the wax. Ange keeps making him guess, thus making him jump, when he’s going to feel that low burn and where. “You know, if you weren’t looking, you probably wouldn’t know if this was ice water or hot wax, at first. Makes for a very fun guessing game. Well. Fun for me. Not so much fun for you, if you guess wrong. We should play some time.”

“Sounds like…something a sadist would say.” R says, fingers digging into the edge of the table as Ange trails wax along the lines he just scratched down Grantaire’s back.

“I _like_ you,” Ange says, laughing and smearing the wax with his fingers again, like a kid finger-painting, if the canvas was Grantaire and the paint was something more like melted crayons. “I think I’ll keep you. Let me see if I can find someway to knock you speechless some time.”

“You wouldn’t be the first person to try.”

Something desperate and wanting flares hot and quick in the pit of Grantaire’s stomach, flame to a candle wick, when Ange leans over him, chest to Grantaire’s wax-covered back. He brushes his curls away to whisper in his ear. “I’d be the first to succeed, I’m sure.”

The sound that Grantaire makes verges on embarrassing.

This situation quickly proves to be a problem.

Ange laughs again, which doesn’t help matters whatsoever, and slides off the table with more grace than Grantaire can ever hope to possess. “How are you feeling?”

R pulls his elbows towards him and props himself up on his forearms as best he can, turning a bit to look at Ange. “Out of it.” He says, after a moment of thought.

“In a bad way?”

“No. Don’t think so.”

“I suppose I’ll have to take reducing you to half sentences as a win, then. Do you feel up to trying it on your front?”

When he doesn’t answer, Ange circles around to crouch in front of him, as close to eye-level as he can get. He reaches out, as if to touch him, but then seems to think better of it and drops his hand again. (Grantaire kind of wishes he hadn’t.) “Can you give me a color?”

“Well.” Grantaire says, ducking his head and running his fingers through his hair, not wanting Ange to see his blown pupils and flushed ears. “Yellow, um, I’m…”

“Talk to me, R. Do we need to stop?”

“No, it’s…” He trails off and makes a vague, helpless gesture with his bound hands, risking a glance up at Ange and willing him to understand without him having to say it aloud. Ange’s brow furrows in confusion, and then the realization begins to dawn on him, reflected in his expression by a slow smile.

“Oh, you poor thing.” He says, ruffling his hair again when he lets his head thump down again. Grantaire huffs without looking up. “It’s too bad we made a rule about no sexual touching, hm? Can’t back out of it now. Why don’t we save your front for another time, in that case?”

R nods. “Can I have my hands back?”

“Hm? Did I say I was done playing with you?” Ange asks, and drags the nails of both hands down Grantaire’s back, making him practically squirm. “Not just yet. Getting the wax off is almost as fun as putting it on. Didn’t I tell you scratching had its merits? Color?”

“Uh. Fuck. Something like that. Green.”

“Hands are useful toys.”

“Do they come in…handy?” He can barely think straight, let alone stop himself from making what is possibly the worst joke he has ever made in his life. Ange clicks his tongue in a disappointed fashion.

“Don’t make me regret letting you off with just a few red lines, R.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

It’s more of a grunt than a sentence.

“Floggers are an effective way of removing wax, as well.” He scrapes his nails down his back yet again. “Knives, too, which I have a soft spot for. Maybe next time.”

Grantaire gasps, shakily, despite himself.

“Not really helping your _problem_ , am I?”

“You don’t sound very sorry about it.” He grumbles, only half-heartedly.

“That’s because I’m not.” Ange says. It’s too easy for Grantaire to hear the smile in his voice. “Don’t worry, darling. I am absolutely going to be thinking about this later.”

That gives Grantaire pause, and he sneaks another look through his peripheral vision. “Oh?” He asks, quietly, as if he doesn’t hold his breath after he asks it.

Ange’s gaze flicks to meet his, and he smiles before turning his attention back to his hands. “Mhm.” He traces an erratic pattern on Grantaire’s back, connecting dots of wax. “When I’m home, alone, tonight, I’ll think of you, with your fucking _eyeliner_ , gasping and groaning beneath me, while I touch myself. As for you…” He slides his hand into R’s hair, pulling his head back to murmur in his ear once more. “I want you to think of me, and how it turned you on when I hurt you.”

It makes him shiver, which makes Ange laugh.

“Now. I’ll step outside and give you a moment to…compose yourself.” He says, as he unties Grantaire’s hands, and R watches him pull on his jeans. “I won’t be far. Just call me when you’re ready.”

Grantaire takes the opportunity to stretch and get himself back in order, and if there’s a small wet spot of precome on the front of his boxers, no one has to know. Ange knocks briefly a few moments later, and Grantaire still feels a bit dizzy and his tongue still feels foreign in his mouth when he says, “Come in.” He sits up when he does, hands in his lap, and can’t help smiling back at Ange, imitating his expression.

“Hey there.” Ange says, softly, and Grantaire can’t tell if he’s imagining the mischievous tone in his voice or not.

“Hey.” He says back, with just the slightest verbal question mark.

“How are you feeling?”

“…A little bit…fuzzy.”

Ange chuckles, resting his hands on Grantaire’s thighs. “Happy?”

Grantaire has to think about this for a moment. “Yeah, I guess so. Why?”

“Because you’re grinning like crazy.”

Grantaire touches his face to confirm that he is, in fact, grinning a wide smile. “Oh.”

“God, you’re adorable. Come here, let me hug you.” Ange pulls him into another hug, this time running his fingers through Grantaire’s hair. They sit like that for a while, in an oddly intimate silence, Ange’s hand in Grantaire’s hair and Grantaire’s arms wrapped around him in return.

Grantaire is the first to break the silence. “Sorry for cutting things short.”

“Oh, don’t be. I can think of much worse ways this night could’ve gone. I rather liked it this way, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Then we’re fine.” He pulls away enough to look at him, and Grantaire shivers again, though for very different reasons than before. “Are you cold?”

R shrugs by way of reply, and Ange runs his hands up and down Grantaire’s arms in an attempt to warm them before giving up and retrieving a light jacket and wrapping it around R’s shoulders like a blanket.

“Better?”

“Yeah. Although there’s still wax on my back making me itch.”

“I’ll get a wash rag for you in a minute, I just didn’t want to have to leave you alone for long while you’re clearly still floating off somewhere near subspace.”

That’s interesting. Subspace. Is he somewhere near that? He hadn’t considered it, but it would make sense.

“Oh.” He says, eloquently.

Ange simply laughs and wraps Grantaire into his arms yet again. “Take your time. I’ll hold you as long as you need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> regular updates, funny joke. this chapter has been re-written like six times.
> 
> anyway, come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://gopuckurself.tumblr.com/), where I occasionally actually post things.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Grantaire, if you tell me you hooked up with someone last night without telling me, I will break your fucking neck.”  
> “Okay.” He says, and Éponine stares blankly at him.  
> “Okay?”  
> “So I won’t tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter: a brief bit of drop and Grantaire's negative headspace, rope bite night, no on-screen negotiation (though it definitely happens off-screen! just letting you know), then some real fun misuse of trivia and clothespins

Grantaire spends much of the next morning in bed, and he can’t tell if it’s a drop thing or just your everyday regular depression thing.

Ange had held him and talked him down for what could’ve been five minutes or thirty, and promised to be there if Grantaire reached out with any less-than-pleasant emotions the next day. But he thinks he probably needs to figure out if he’s having less-than-pleasant emotions of the drop variety before he bothers him with it. There’s no need to saddle Ange with the joys of all his mental health quirks just because he might have had a stronger than expected reaction to having hot wax dripped all over his body. Right?

Right.

He’d showered first thing when he got home the night before, some wax still stubbornly clinging to his skin and peeling off in his shirt. Sleepily, he scrubbed the makeup from his face and let the warm water run down his back and remind him of the way Ange had touched him. It wasn’t until he got out of the shower that he realized somehow he’d made it home with Ange’s jacket.

It had been pretty late when they finally emerged from that back room (now fully dressed) and there were only a few people left on the couches in the social room, the rest either long gone or busy having scenes of their own. Jehan and Lark were there, though, and they cheered for them when they returned, whisper-shouting questions at them. Ange had ignored it, still concerned about Grantaire shivering, but he’d smiled. Grantaire had just grinned and shook his head.

He’d had a nice time, an extremely nice time, so why is he fucking it up now?

Eventually hunger pulls him out of bed, and he finds Joly and Bossuet half-asleep on the couch, watching Parks and Rec for what is probably the sixteenth time through. He decides not to bother them, either, and fixes himself a cup of instant noodles as quietly as he can before he heads back to his room. Not without stealing the bag of dark chocolate almonds from the cabinets though.

He decides to text Éponine.

_Do chocolate covered almonds count as a meal? Asking for a friend._

All she does is ask _dark chocolate or milk?_

_Dark._

_Could be worse._

He loves Éponine.

(He still eats his noodles, though. He’s already microwaved it. No use letting it go to waste.)

Sometime in the day, he doesn’t know when, exactly, he just knows he’s been watching a metric fuckton of episodes of his latest TV binge (even by his standards) and the light coming through the window blinds has changed, Joly knocks on his door and lets himself in. He looks a little rumpled and sleepy, like he’d just woken from a nap—probably he had. He doesn’t say anything, just climbs into Grantaire’s bed and curls up next to him, one arm wrapped around him. R pauses his show and they simply stay like that for a few minutes, until Grantaire thinks his heart might burst. He’s still half-convinced he doesn’t deserve his friends.

This is a part of their routine. Joly worries, but he gives Grantaire space when he asks for it. And when he doesn’t, Joly often tries to offer him the simple comfort of another person’s closeness. He probably thinks Grantaire feels lonely or left out, in here in this room while he and Bossuet share the other, larger one, separated by the kitchen and the living room, as if that distance were insurmountable and not the span of like, twelve whole steps maybe. (To be fair, Grantaire has been known to try and hole himself in his room for multiple days on end, but he’s working on it.) The truth is just that nothing grounds Grantaire in the present like the sound of another person’s heartbeat or their breathing, and so he doesn’t complain.

God, that makes Joly sound like an emotional support dog. Grantaire doesn’t know how to appreciate Joly the way he should. Just another of his probably monumental failings as a human being.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Joly says, into Grantaire’s shirt, drawing him a little bit out of his mental spiral, “but it might make you feel better if you do.”

“It’s nothing specific,” He says, which he’s pretty sure is not a lie, because if it is something specific he has no clue what that specific something is, “I just…don’t feel good today.” That’s better.

Joly nods. He knows about hard-to-get-out-of-bed days. He’s had his fair share of them, though for much different reasons. He’d spent ages fighting for a diagnosis for his chronic illness(es). Which just makes Grantaire feel even shittier when it’s Joly helping him instead of the other way around. “Bossuet had to go.” He says, presumably to explain why their third roommate isn’t there.

“That’s alright.”

“Hand me the almonds.” Joly says, after a moment of thought, reaching over Grantaire for them. “What are you watching?”

With some coaxing, Joly turns Grantaire’s depressive episode into something less like a mope-session and more like a lazy and warm Sunday afternoon. It is hard to feel bad when making fun of the contestants of a baking show together and munching on chocolate almonds. It’s easy to remember that there are good things in the world, he supposes, especially when Bossuet brings home takeout and they pile into Grantaire’s bed and on his floor and watch the competition show on his little laptop screen until evening. It’s easier to remember that he is happy, generally, and the sadness doesn’t last forever. This will pass. He’s still feeling a little off-kilter. But it will pass.

“I wish I could bake.” He says, idly. “Like, who am I to judge that guy for over-proofing his bread if I can’t even bake a cake without a box recipe?”

“You could learn.” Joly points out.

“Yeah, I mean, I know I _could_ , I just—“ He stops short.

Joly nudges him with his elbow, giving him a sly sideways look. “You couldn’t even think of a good reason not to give a shot just now, could you?”

“No! I mean, I…I’m bad at it.”

“You’ve never tried.” Bossuet chimes in.

Grantaire makes an exasperated sound. “I’m bad at cooking!”

“You’ve _barely_ tried.” Joly continues.

“You guys, it’s still a little creepy when you finish each other’s sentences.”

“I don’t think that counts.” They say, in unison, with the same equally perplexed expressions.

“Jesus Christ, you two spend too much time together.” R huffs, rolling his eyes. Maybe that’s what he’ll spend tomorrow doing, then. It isn’t often he gets two whole days off in a row, and he should take advantage of it. He spends an episode and a half scrolling through bread recipes and cupcake recipes and pie recipes before he settles on a couple of easy looking ones to choose from. A message from Ange pings on his phone while he’s wistfully reading the ingredients lists.

_Hey, sweetheart, how are you feeling today? Ange._

Oh. So apparently the nicknames are sticking around even out of the scene, now, too. Huh.

_Depends. Do chocolate-covered almonds count as a meal? R._

_Probably not. Talk to me? Ange._

It reminds him of how Ange had looked at him, when he found him outside of Threshold, with such softness. He doesn’t know what to make of it just as much as he doesn’t know what to make of the pet names Ange has started throwing at him. (He especially doesn’t know what to do with the watery weak-at-the-knees feeling it gives him.) He waits for a few introspective moments before he replies. _I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a big deal, I don’t feel unhappy. Just not happy. R._

After a minute he has to add _Sorry. I don’t mean to make a mess of things. I had fun last night. R._

_Please, don’t be sorry. It’s natural. You definitely hit a high of some kind last night. Of course it’s going to feel strange while you adjust back to normalcy. Ange._

Oh, yeah. About that. _Did I really go into subspace just like that? R._

_Maybe. Maybe not fully. There’s not really a sign that appears and says ‘You Have Now Entered Subspace.’ It’s mostly physiological. Endorphins. Though there is a mental aspect, too. Ange._

Grantaire cringes. _I suppose I should be embarrassed that’s all it took, huh? R._

Ange’s reply is immediate. _No, I don’t think so. It’s different for everyone, but since it was essentially your first time, I will admit I was kind of anticipating it, although I wasn’t sure it would happen or not. They say it’s like a drug, and you’ll never get there quite so easily again, but I don’t think that’s true. I just think it’s different for everybody. Ange._

_That makes sense , I guess. R._ He’d done some reading on his own, of course. And he’d heard about it before. He just wasn’t expecting it.

_For the record, I had a lot of fun as well. Ange._ Well. Grantaire wasn’t expecting that, either.

_Even though we had to cut it short? R._

_Oh, have no fear. That was a bonus. Ange._

_Really? R._ He writes, skeptical.

_Really. Ange._

He isn’t convinced. Ange must sense this, because another message comes through shortly after.

_I told you I’d be thinking of it, later. I meant it._ And then, _Is that what’s bothering you today? That we had to stop? Ange._

Grantaire sighs to himself, now only half-listening to the show and fiddling with his phone instead. _I guess. R._ He says, which is probably suspiciously non-committal.

_You didn’t mess anything up, R. We had boundaries that we agreed upon beforehand, and we kept to them. You recognized that our scene was going in a direction that you weren’t entirely comfortable with, so we slowed down, and stopped. You did everything right, I promise. Ange._

“Hey, can you pass me those soy sauce packets?” Bossuet asks, interrupting Grantaire’s train of thought. He throws the packets over to him. Somehow they miss, and one lands in Bossuet’s food, but he seems unbothered by it. To be fair, Bossuet is unbothered by most things. The baking show queues up another episode. Someone under-bakes something again, a notoriously mean judge shakes someone’s hands. A contestant cries. Grantaire writes Ange another message.

_I wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, though. R._

_Nonetheless, you told me you didn’t want anything sexual last night. I’m not really comfortable with mid-scene negotiation, and I especially don’t do it with a brand new partner. That would be a recipe for disaster. We did what was best and most comfortable for both of us. Ange._

_That sounds like something someone just trying to make me feel better would say. R._

_I wouldn’t lie to you, I’m being honest. But, is it working? Ange._

Grantaire thinks about this. _A little. R._

_Good. Eat those chocolate almonds if they help you feel better, but do try to eat something of substance as well, please. Ange._

_I’ve got it covered. R._

_I can’t tell if that was supposed to be a pun or not. Ange._

_Ha. No. Have some faith in me. My puns are better executed than that. R._

_I don’t know. That one you said to me yesterday was pretty awful. Ange._

_I was a bit distracted. R._

_Oh? Whatever by? Ange._

R huffs out a quiet laugh, rolling his eyes. He realizes, for the first time that evening, that he inso longer quite as not-happy as he was when he woke up that morning. Perhaps, even, he is not that not-happy at all. It’s amazing what a baking show and a meal with friends can do. (Well. That and having a stupidly attractive man who calls him darling comforting him over the internet. That helps, too.) _You know full well. R._

_I most certainly do. But maybe I just want you to say it. Ange._

_You. Being distracting. R._

_Is that all? Clearly I’ll have to work harder at it next time, if all you remember is being distracted. Ange._

_There was something to do with wax, I think. R._

_Play with me again and maybe I’ll give you marks you won’t be able to forget. Ange._

Grantaire discovers he rather likes the sound of that. He likes the idea of playing with Ange again even better though. _If you wanted to do another scene with me, all you had to do was ask. R._

There’s barely a pause between messages this time. _I absolutely want to do another scene with you. Have no doubt about that. Ange._

_Yeah? R._

_Yeah. Ange._

It’s his turn to end the conversation with a _Good. R._

 

 

* * *

 

 

He texts Éponine the next morning. _I’m learning to make bread, want in?_ Between his friends and Ange’s messages, he’s back to feeling generally happy and maybe a little bit overwhelmed, which is about par for the course as far as his emotional state goes. Éponine turns up in his apartment after he returns from the grocery with the necessary ingredients (yeast, flour, salt, it’s literally the easiest recipe he could possibly find). He is only mildly surprised to find her there.

“How the hell did you get in there?” He asks, cheerfully, depositing his grocery sack on the counter and starting the process of clearing the rest of the counter for a little space to work.

“What, you think I don’t have a key to this place?”

That’s not something that had ever occurred to Grantaire. “Oh.” He says, after a thoughtful moment.

Éponine laughs at him. “Bossuet let me in before he went to class, dipshit.”

That makes much more sense.

By the time they finish, they have one loaf baked and half-eaten, one in the oven, one more currently rising, and flour absolutely _everywhere_. It’s not the worst fate in the world, it’s not in any _carpet_ anywhere, but it’s going to be a mess trying to get the stuff out of his hair. (Don’t ask.) But it does give him an idea.

He takes a selfie with the faux winter wonderland that is now his kitchen and sends it to Ange, with a caption that reads _Here’s a dirty pic. R,_ signed off with a classic winky face which seems like a necessary and useful addition.

Ange replies a few short minutes later, around the same time Joly gets home, and Grantaire may or may not duck behind the cabinets to read it uninterrupted. _God. Don’t make me hurt you. Ange._

_Oh, you need an invitation? R._

_Just you wait, smart ass. Ange._

It’s meant to be a threat, obviously, and it certainly does its job, but Grantaire can’t help grinning. _I think you rather like my smart ass. R._

_I do. Almost as much as I’d like making you pay for it. Ange._

“R?” Joly says, hesitantly, from the edge of the kitchen. R waves.

“Yeah?”

“So you baked.”

“Mhm.”

“And how’d it go?”

“Spectacularly.”

“Is that why you’re sitting on the floor covered in flour?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.” Joly says, although he’s fighting back laughter. “And who’s in our shower?”

“Éponine.” Grantaire stands up, making a brief (if futile) attempt to brush some flour off his t-shirt. “She has to go in to work.” Which does explain everything, though it may not seem like it, to be fair.

“Okay. You want help cleaning up?”

“No, no, I’ve got it.” He waves his hands. “You go ahead and get off your feet. Want a slice of peasant bread toast?”

He takes a minute to text Ange back when he puts the last loaf in the oven, and Éponine and Joly are sitting chatting on the couch. _That can be arranged. R._

_Has anyone ever told you you’re a tease? Ange._

_Once or twice. A few times. R._

“What are you laughing at, Grantaire?” Éponine asks, running product through her hair and using her phone’s front-facing camera as a mirror.

“Nothing.” Grantaire says, locking his phone and shoving it quickly in his pocket, which is potentially the most damning thing he could’ve done.

They blink at him.

“No one!”

Oh, fuck. He could kick himself.

“No one?” Joly echoes, sounding far too delighted as he drapes himself over the back of the couch cushions, grinning at Grantaire. “R! Are you on tinder? You are, aren’t you. The social media ban has finally given up the ghost.”

“Does tinder count as social media?”

“You’re deflecting!”

He gives Éponine a desperate look, but she just raises an eyebrow at him, unsympathetic. “It’s nothing. Don’t make a thing out of it.” He says, exasperated.

“Grantaire.” Joly says, very seriously. “You know us well enough by now to know that the less information we have, the bigger the thing we’re going to make of it.”

“Feel free to make up elaborate backstories til your heart’s content, then, because it’s nothing.”

“Fiiiine.” Joly slides back down the couch. “I guess now that you’re in the dating pool again, I’ll stop trying to set you up.”

“Joly, last time you tried to set me up with anyone, it was a prank, I’m never taking dating suggestions from you again.”

“You what?” Éponine asks, eyebrows raised.

“I didn’t! It wasn’t!” He waves his hands. “All I said was, I think Jehan might have suggested the idea to me for the sheer drama of it all. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have worked out. What if you’d hit it off?”

“Wait, Jehan was involved?” Grantaire had forgotten that part of the story, but Éponine talks over him.

“Who was it?”

“Well…” Joly, at least, looks a little abashed. “It might have been…Enjolras?”

“ _Enjolras_?” Éponine gasps, before bursting into laughter. “Are you fucking kidding?”

God, Grantaire is completely lost. “You know this guy?”

“Yeah.” She waves a dismissive hand, as if he has any idea what she’s talking about. “We’ve met, obviously, and I went to a few meetings. Joly, are you serious?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!”

“That could’ve been a train wreck.”

“Okay, alright, I get it, I have no fucking chance with this person, can we talk about something that isn’t my apparently hopeless love life now, please?” R asks, desperately, and thankfully they move on to other topics. He tries not to dwell on it. His phone pings another message, but he ignores it for the time being, not wanting to start that conversation up again.

It’s not from Ange, though.

Private message from MerryWanderer. _Come to rope night. JP._

 

 

* * *

 

 

So he remembers where he met Jehan the first time. Joly had invited him and a couple of other friends from classes over for a tabletop RPG marathon once, years ago. It had been fun. He’d appeared in their dorm room in floral Docs and glittery purple eyeshadow (with glittery purple dice to match) and Grantaire had remembered thinking he would never even be able to pretend to be that that confident. He wishes he had some of that confidence now, when he finds himself standing outside of Threshold, trying not to freak out, for the third time in as many weeks. The anxiety has gotten a little bit more manageable, though, and he’s been told the lights’ll be up the entire time, and that this night is dedicated to a an exclusively educational tone, which helps. It’s supposed to be very chill.

He’s much more worried about seeing Ange in person again. (He’s much more worried about how much he _wants_ to see Ange in person again.) He tells himself it’s not a big deal. Anyone would want to see Ange again if he’d been calling them _sweetheart_ every other sentence. He hadn’t told Ange he’d been coming, though, and he tells himself this is because he couldn’t decide if he really was going to go or not, but the truth is it might also be another attempt to get a glimpse of Ange a little off script.

Jehan slings an arm around Grantaire’s shoulders the instant he sees him. “R! You made it!”

“Hey.” Grantaire says, more subdued, which is probably how anyone would appear next to Jehan and his penchant for glitter and bright florals. His sweats and socks are a stark contrast to the leather Grantaire had seen him in previously, though, and apparently he’s allergic to shirts. It’s hard to picture him in one, though he knows Jehan had worn a shirt to their dorm that time. Surely. Grantaire would’ve remembered if Joly invited a shirtless friend over, because that would’ve been a very different kind of party.

“It’s a good thing you did,” Jehan continues, “because I was just about to be the odd man out. How do you feel about getting tied up today?”

“Generally positive, I suppose.”

“Fantastic. I need a partner.” He leads R into the main room, where a group has begun to gather. Chill is definitely the word for it, in Grantaire’s opinion. If it weren’t for all the rope, it might look like they were getting ready for a yoga class. Grantaire is glad he went for the joggers, or else he’d stand out more than he already does naturally. “Don’t worry, I’ll be nice. Nicer than Ange, anyway.”

Speaking of which.

Ange has his back to them when they come in, busy speaking to a slight woman in brightly colored leggings, although it’s Ange and his vee neck and jeans that draw Grantaire’s attention like a magnet. Everyone else is in sweatpants, yoga pants, sports bras, leggings. Even though it’s the first time Grantaire’s seen Ange in a t-shirt, he still stands out, and R watches him tie his hair back messily, curls falling into his face. God, it’s really not fair. Grantaire had rather thought he’d been building Ange’s attractiveness up in his head, the memory of him colored by their frequent messages, but no. Figures, he’s just as pretty as R remembered. Nothing is ever just easy, apparently.

Ange turns his head to glance at the small gathering crowd, his gaze skimming past Grantaire before he does a double-take, a surprised smile spreading across his face. Grantaire gives an awkward little wave, reminiscent of that first time Jehan introduced them.

He waves back, with that same bright smile, and then turns back to the neon woman.

“You didn’t tell him you were coming?” Jehan asks, shrugging his bag off his shoulders and quirking an eyebrow at Grantaire as he retrieves a couple bundles of ropes.

“It…didn’t cross my mind.”

“You’re a bad liar.” Jehan says, and waves a hand when Grantaire starts to protest. “What, am I supposed to believe it didn’t come up? With as much as you two have been messaging?”

“You know about that?” R asks, a little sheepishly.

“Of course I know about that. Who do you think I am? Besides,” he smirks, “he’s rather taken a liking to you, I think.”

Grantaire has to bite back a smile at that, though just as he opens his mouth to say something in response, Ange clears his throat and calls the attention of the room to him. “Thanks for coming out, everyone…” He introduces himself and his partner, Kat, reassures everyone that he has been doing this for a number of years, they can trust him not to mislead them, and he grins a bit of a lopsided grin when he does which makes Grantaire’s stomach drop in a way he isn’t thinking too much about right now.

“We won’t be focusing on any particular ties tonight, instead we’ll be going over a few of the basics, with an emphasis on connecting with your rope partner. Obviously if you’re tying or being tied with someone you know, this will come more naturally. If you’re playing with someone new,” here his gaze cuts over to Grantaire for the briefest of moments, seemingly involuntarily, “it can take a little more work, depending on your comfort level as well as your partner’s.”

He goes through a few basic safety protocols, reminding them all of the importance of keeping a pair of safety shears or a knife nearby, and by all counts, it should be boring. Judging by a few of the other people’s expressions, perhaps it is. Grantaire simply finds it difficult not to listen to Ange, watching the way he gestures with his hands and smiles at each person in turn, though he might linger on Grantaire for a moment or two more.

If that isn’t some trick of the light, Grantaire is trying not to read too much into it. He really, really is.

“What really appeals to me, personally, about bondage is the physical intimacy it demands. Kat and I know each other pretty well by now, I should think, so I know she won’t mind if I…” Ange puts his hands on Kat’s shoulders and gently pushes her to her knees, following her to the ground, “get a little up close and personal.” He ties her arms behind her back, where R can’t see exactly what’s going on, but he sees the focus in Ange’s expression, a slight wrinkle in his nose. Then both his arms are around her shoulders as he begins to wrap her in his rope. It reminds Grantaire of the picture he’s still pretending he hasn’t been staring at. It reminds him a little too much. “If you know what you’re doing, you’ll be able to tie your partner without ever breaking physical contact with them.”

He walks them through the tie, with an emphasis on paying attention to your partner’s verbal and non-verbal cues, pointing out every time he nudges Kat into position or makes eye contact with her, and R listens with rapt fascination. Then Ange opens up the floor for practice.

“Ready to give it a shot?” Jehan asks, bumping R’s shoulder with his own.

“Well.” Grantaire says, finding himself faced with the idea of being tied up in like, the most casual possible fashion and wondering at the novelty of it. It should be strange, maybe, but somehow it isn’t. Just something people do. “I suppose I’m as ready now as I’ll ever be.”

“It’s okay, I’ll talk you through it.” Jehan says, and he does so, conversationally. “Let me know if anything’s too tight or if you feel numb or tingly anywhere. It’s been a while since I’ve tied anyone else, so I’ll be slow. First I need you to cross your arms behind you, wrists facing each other. Did you watch those videos I sent you?”

He nods as Jehan wraps what is presumably a loose single column around both of his wrists. From where he stands, he watches Ange demonstrate a similar tie to another couple, talking them through it much like Jehan is to Grantaire, though much, much slower.

“Good, then you’ll know what this is. Pop quiz. What soft and tender spot are we avoiding in your arms, when I put tension…here?” Jehan circles to Grantaire’s front, bringing the rope with him, tight around R’s upper arms, pushing his sleeve out of the way and sliding his finger along the aforementioned soft and tender spot. Grantaire has to rack his brain a bit to remember.

“The radial nerve?”

“Top marks for retention.” R tries not to roll his eyes, because Jehan is smiling at him. (This phrase tries to throw him back in time all on its own, but he ignores it.) “Where do you, specifically, need to pay attention to see if there’s a pinch or damaged nerve up there?”

The questions keep him focused as Jehan cinches the strap he’s made across the top of Grantaire’s chest, making it so he couldn’t wiggle out of it if he tried, though he doesn’t know why he would. It’s tight, but not nearly as claustrophobic as he’d thought it would be. It’s a bit more…pleasant, but he wouldn’t call it comfortable, either. He’s beginning to understand how quickly you could float off to subspace like this. “Thumb and first two fingers.” There’s a word for the cinches but Grantaire can’t remember them—there’s a lot of _shibari_ vocabulary he’s read, and he remembers the words (most of them Japanese) though not many of their meanings. Jehan makes a second strap, lower down his arms, still careful to avoid the danger area between the deltoid and triceps.

“Remember what this one’s called? It’s also called a box tie.”

“Something that abbreviates as TK.”

“ _Takate kote_ , that’s right.” Jehan grins at him and cinches the second strap much like the first before locking the knots and tying it off. He slides two fingers under the straps on both of Grantaire’s arms, checking the tension one last time. “How are we feeling?”

“Good.”

“I bet. Looks good, if I do say so myself.”

“Aw, shucks.” Grantaire says, dryly.

“Ange would agree with me.”

Surprised, R can’t help but tilt his head to look, feeling the weight of Ange’s gaze on him only after he catches it. Ange looks a little bit rattled, lips slightly parted as if shocked. He doesn’t look away from Grantaire when they make eye contact, the way Grantaire would have done if he’d been caught looking. Instead, he smiles and makes a show of looking Grantaire up and down slowly before someone asks him a question and he has to divert his attention again.

Jehan sniggers, and Grantaire tries not to look quite so flustered. “I expect you’ll be hearing about this later.”

R side-eyes him. “Did you orchestrate this?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Jehan asks, innocently. “I couldn’t have known you wouldn’t have _told_ him. That’s all on you. No tingling anywhere?”

“No.”

He nods. “Not bad if I do say so myself. I don’t get to practice this one much, since I mostly just tie myself.”

“You do?”

“Mhm. It’s a good habit, if you want to do this more often. Helps you learn your own body and its reactions. Want to try?”

It’s almost surprising how quickly Jehan gets him out of the TK, and Grantaire runs his thumbs along the perfect little lines of rope-marks on his upper arms. Jehan hands him a bundle of rope and they sit on the ground while Grantaire fumbles through tying a _futomomo._ He’s struggling to reverse tension without _losing_ the tension when Ange (finally!) makes his way toward their corner of the room. Grantaire is so engrossed in his task that he somehow doesn’t notice until he fucks it up, swears, and Ange says, “Hold the spot where the ropes cross with your other hand, so they don’t slip.”

“What?” Grantaire asks, a little too loud, surprised.

Ange crouches in front of him, gesturing to the rope. “May I?” When he nods, Ange takes the rope from him and demonstrates, and Grantaire briefly forgets to actually pay attention, distracted by his hands.

What can he say, he’s just a man of simple wants. Such as wanting that man’s hands all over him.

“See?

Oh. Right. “Yeah.” He says, belatedly, thankful it wasn’t anything more complicated, because he’d have totally missed it if it was.

“So is this the kinky version of the jock showing the nerd how to swing a bat?” Jehan asks, in a bored but humorous tone, with the air of ribbing a familiar friend. Grantaire works on untying his leg to try again to hide the way it startles him. It sounds cheesier than he’d ever admit, but he had honestly forgotten they were in a room full of other people.

Ange rolls his eyes. “I trust you haven’t traumatized one of our newest members yet, Jehan?”

“I leave frightening the newbies to you, my dear, that’s usually your area of expertise.”

Grantaire wonders which one of them picked up the casual pet names first.

As for which one is more frightening, he thinks they each have two different kinds of hunger when they show their teeth. Jehan has a naturally dangerous edge, something about him that feels a little wild, but Ange uses his like a precision tool.

Like a knife in skilled hands.

Ange enlists Jehan’s help and Grantaire is left to fumble through a few basic knots and ties on his own until people start to drift out. Jehan appears by his side when he starts to gather his things to go, a hand on his shoulder. “Wait.” He says, tugging them aside and settling to lean against the wall. Pulling Grantaire down to sit next to him. He puts a finger to his lips and whispers, “Watch.”

Ange is tying Kat.

A few other people remain, hovering near the edges, like Jehan and Grantaire, but Ange doesn’t seem to mind or notice. Grantaire realizes for the first time in its entirety that this is Ange’s element. There is that slightly furrowed brow and wrinkled nose, as he kneels behind Kat and ties an elaborate diamond-patterned harness around her chest and arms. Kat looks—serene isn’t the word. Not relaxed, either. Pliant, maybe. Her eyes are closed, and her head lolls, and she rocks slightly back and forth every time Ange tightens a knot. Cheek to cheek, chin resting on her shoulder, he adds more rope and another diamond.

Grantaire is watching art unfold.

Ange runs a line up, from her back to a bamboo pole suspended from a beam above her head explicitly for this purpose, then back down. They have all kinds of suspension points rigged from the ceiling, Grantaire realizes, all at once. Ange puts a hand on Kat’s arm, a warning, maybe, then pulls her to her feet with a few short tugs on the line. Only her toes touch the ground. Ange sits back a moment, eyeing the rope, checking the tension, watching her sway on her feet, a brief respite before he dives back into his work again. He binds her thighs together with two thick bands of rope, then connects that to a waist line. Kat simply hangs there while he adds another set of bands around her calves, barely holding up her own weight, gently swinging. He runs another line from the bands above her knees to the bamboo, and then he pulls, and her whole body is lifted into the air.

R can’t help watching his arms as it happens, muscles tight. Watching Ange, like that, his mouth goes dry.

Bringing Kat back down to the ground is no less enrapturing. Ange adds a third suspension line from her ankles, gently untying the first, from the chest harness, until she is hanging completely upside down. Her brow is creased now, face slowly turning pink, but Ange cradles her head and lowers her down bit by bit until her head and shoulders touch the ground. Just as carefully, he slackens the last line, ever so slow, until every bit of her is on the matted floor. There she remains, breathing heavy and slow, while Ange unwraps her, knot by knot, bodily lifting her to reach the ropes he needs to reach, careful to prop her up against his chest.

Grantaire’s phone gives the quietest buzz in his pocket. “I have to go.” He says, in a whisper, and makes a run for it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He leaves long before Ange and Jehan, but by the time he gets home, he already has a message waiting for him in his inbox.

_You didn’t tell me you’d be there. Ange._

It’s not accusatory, really, or at least, Grantaire doesn’t read it that way, but he still isn’t sure what to say in reply. _I had to talk myself into it, so I didn’t want to commit to something I might still have talked myself out of. Sorry. R._

_Don’t be. I’m glad you made it. Ange._

_It was very educational. R._ (That is, among other things.) Yeah, Grantaire learned a lot. Mostly about himself. Mostly about himself being way more into rope than he had previously realized. He also learned to tie a Somerville Bowline single column tie, but that seems pretty much inconsequential at the moment.

_I was hoping I’d get to talk to you afterwards. Ange._

Grantaire makes a face. His mad dash out of Threshold was not his finest moment, that’s for sure. _Had to run._ He says. _I saw you at work, though. I’ve never seen a suspension in progress before. R._

_Oh? What did you think? Ange._

_It was really stunning. R._

_I saw you getting tied. Ange._

_Yeah? And what did you think? R._

_I can’t help but be a little jealous. Ange._

Well, that sends a delighted little thrill through him, despite himself. _Jealous? R._

_I think the concept of virginity is terribly flawed, but there is a selfish part of me that wanted to be the first to tie you. Something appeals to me about popping that particular metaphorical cherry that I didn’t recognize until I saw you in Jehan’s rope. Ange._

That should _not_ be as arousing as it is. Grantaire is probably going to have to take a cold shower after this. To be fair, he has felt like he needed a cold shower after most of his conversations with Ange, so that isn’t exactly new, and yet… He thinks back to the way Ange had looked at him, earlier, the only time so far he’s seen the man look anything other than perfectly cool and collected. If there’s a part of Ange that is jealous, there is more than a little part of Grantaire that likes it, and that’s probably all kinds of fucked up, but Grantaire is not thinking about that right now.

_What can I do to make it up to you? R_ , he writes, instead.

_Oh, what a dangerous but enticing question. Play with me again. Ange._

It isn’t a question. He answers it like one anyway. _I’d be happy to. R._

_Will you let me tie you? Ange._

_Yes. No suspensions, though. R._

_I can work with that. How did it feel today, in the TK? Did you enjoy it? Ange._

_Yes. R._

_Good. I’m glad. Ange._

Grantaire types out another reply, then quickly deletes it, then proceeds to repeat this process at least twice more before he finally settles on a sentence he likes. _I wouldn’t mind if you were a bit rougher than Jehan, though. R._

He ignores the nervous fluttering in the pit of his stomach while he waits for an answer.

_Oh? Please do elaborate. Ange._

_I just mean, it didn’t hurt as much as I expected it would, is all. R._

_Oh, I see, I see. You wanted it to hurt, didn’t you? Ange._

_Well. Yeah. R._

_And so you want me to make it hurt for you, hm? Ange._

_Yes. R._ Grantaire is grateful Ange can’t see the way just typing that one word makes him feel short of breath. He might need that cold shower a little sooner than anticipated.

_Darling, you certainly have a way of making a man feel special. Ange._

_Well, I said I’d make it up to you, didn’t I? R._

_You did. You very much did. Are you going to regret that later, do you think? Ange._

_Why do I get the feeling you’re going to try and prove me wrong if I say no? R._

_Because I’m a sadist, and you’d be entirely correct, probably. Ange._

_Something like that. R._

Yeah. He needs to go get in the fucking shower, _right_ now.

But then Ange says _How would you feel about playing a game?_ and Grantaire can’t possibly let that kind of question slide.

 

 

* * *

 

 

This time when Ange holds court in Threshold’s social room, he keeps Grantaire close to him with an arm on his waist or around his shoulders that borders on possessive, apparently not keen to let him out of sight or out of reach, but Grantaire really doesn’t mind. Somehow, when he leans close to whisper “Ready?” in Grantaire’s ear, it feels intimate, electric, perhaps even a little bit filthy in and of itself. Grantaire nods, and for once he thinks it might actually be the truth.

He’s wrong, of course. But it’s a nice thought while it lasts.

They go back to a different little room than last time, this one is a little smaller, with more space, padded mats on the floors, and equipment lining the walls. Grantaire recognizes a smaller version of the St. Andrew’s cross in the main room, but the rest is pretty much incomprehensible to him. That doesn’t mean he can’t make a couple of good guesses what they’re used for. He’s looking at something that looks like the barest bones of a dentist’s chair when he realizes Ange is watching him take it all in. At some point when he wasn’t looking, Ange had dragged a chair from the edge of the room closer to the center and had taken a seat. Time briefly stops, along with Grantaire’s heartbeat, when Ange smiles at him and says “Strip.”

He’d known it was coming, they’d talked about it, at length, and yet he still finds himself completely unprepared for the full force of Ange’s attention on him. It doesn’t cross his mind to make any kind of show of it, too busy trying to keep his hands steady while he undresses down to his boxers and Ange makes the folding chair look like a throne. The heat in his eyes raises goosebumps on Grantaire’s skin, and he resists the urge to cross his arms over his chest just like last time. Ange notices.

“Good boy.” He says, and chuckles when Grantaire shivers. He crooks a finger at him. “Come here.”

Also like last time, it sounds just the same. The quiet shift in tone, to match the shift in balance. Grantaire does, and Ange leans to rummage through his bag for rope before he stands up. (It’s jute and it’s red, this time. Grantaire wonders vaguely if it’s his favorite color.)

“You should know how this one goes. Since you let someone _else_ tie you instead of me. Turn around, arms behind your back.” Ange says, voice full of something Grantaire can’t quite name while R tries not to think about the fact that he is more than half naked while the other man remains fully clothed. He can feel Ange’s breath on the back of his neck while he ties his arms. “You should know I don’t like other people touching things that are _mine._ ”

_Fuck_. A shudder drags its fingers down Grantaire’s spine. Again with the presumptuousness. He’s never found it so unfairly fucking sexy before.

Ange puts him in some variation of the box tie Jehan tied him in, but he doesn’t cinch the straps down, and he does it quicker, just a little bit looser. Then he slips something underneath the top strap and _twists,_ increasing the tension, and Grantaire nearly crumples, surprised by the way it hurts. “Ah—ow, fuck.”

“I’m sure you’ll know better next time.” Ange says, perfectly pleasant, pushing him to his knees on the soft mat. “Now, let’s have some fun, shall we? Are you ready to play?”

When he doesn’t answer, Ange twists again and Grantaire struggles to catch his breath. It feels like being strangled without anyone’s hands on his throat, or the beginning of a panic attack constricting around his chest, and it _hurts_ where the rope digs in—what an evil little trick. “ _Yes_.”

“That’s what I thought.” Ange says, sweetly, and Grantaire rolls his shoulders as best he can when he releases the ropes at his back. “Cross your legs for me, please, darling, and remember—if anything starts to tingle, you tell me immediately.”

Grantaire shifts to sit cross-legged and Ange circles back around to crouch in front of him, a string of clothespins dangling between his hands, each clip twirling lazily until Ange pulls the string taut.R eyes it warily, and Ange smiles.

“So you know what this is, then?”

“A zipper.” Grantaire’s voice comes out ragged with anticipation, and he clears his throat.

“Have you ever had one used on you?”

He shakes his head.

“Then we’ll have lots of fun indeed. Here’s the best part, R: putting it on is almost as fun as ripping it off.”

“I’m not sure you and I have the same definitions of ‘fun.’”

“Smart boy.” Ange laughs. “Color?”

“Green.”

At this confirmation, Ange begins clipping the clothespins all the way up R’s thigh, a haphazard row of pinches that make him flex his hands behind his back, biting his lip when they get to more sensitive areas. There isn’t enough time between each one to grow accustomed to the sharp, stingy way the clothespins bite, and it’s hard not to squirm. It only begins to settle into a hazy pain, one bite indistinguishable from the next, just in time for Ange to switch to the other leg. This time, he flicks each clip after he finishes them, a new, bright burst of pain that makes Grantaire hiss “ow, ow, ow,” after each one.

“Here’s how this is going to work.” He says, once he finishes. “You get a question wrong, and I get to hurt you. Answer three in a row correctly, though, and I’ll give you a reward.”

“That doesn’t sound biased at all.”

“Have no fear, it most definitely is. Let’s not forget, you asked me to hurt you, after all. But I’ll give you a taste…Eyes on me.” R meets his gaze but has to close his eyes almost immediately, a quiet sound escaping him as Ange crowds into his space and reaches a hand between them to touch him through the fabric of his boxers. “No, darling, I said eyes on me.”

Grantaire lets out a slow breath and opens his eyes to find Ange smiling at him, gaze intent on his face. After a moment he slips his fingers under his waistband, without looking away, watching for reactions while he strokes R to hardness. The clothespins are all but forgotten.

He feels a bit like a science experiment, the control group simply Ange’s touch, the experimental each twist of his hand, and Ange is taking note of what makes his hips move and his breath hitch. He waits until Grantaire is gasping to stop, an1`d R groans when he pulls away. “Ready to play?”

Grantaire nods.

“Good boy. I’ll give you an easy one first, then. I’m tall when I’m young and I’m short when I’m old. What am I?” He hums while he waits for an answer, sitting in the chair, dragging his bag close, and rummaging through it. Grantaire has never heard the Jeopardy theme song sound quite so ominous. Just when he opens his mouth to answer Ange says “too slow!” and produces another clothespin from his bag.

“A candle.” Grantaire says, through his teeth, while Ange leans to savagely pinch and twist one of his nipples. He barely bites back a squeak when he does, the sharpness of the pain nearly taking his breath away. Clearly he’d forgotten how much such a thing can hurt and demand all of his attention. (Or, perhaps, he’d never known anything to demand all of his attention in such a way as Ange demands it.)

“Mhm, look at you, clever boy. Sensitive, are we? But you’ll have to be quicker than that.”

“You didn’t say anything about speed— _fuck._ ” His complaint dies on his tongue when Ange clips the pin to his already abused nipple.

“No? Well, I am now. Or did you forget? I don’t play nice.” He flicks this clothespin much like the others, but this time Grantaire’s whole body jerks away. Ange grins, clicking his tongue. “None of that now, don’t move away. You wanted to be hurt, remember.”

“Jesus.” R says, on an exhale, the reminder making his traitorous cock twitch. It doesn’t escape Ange’s notice.

“Not quite, just me. Next question.”

He gets the next three questions wrong, either because Ange deems him too slow or because he simply can’t make sense of the riddles under these conditions. After the first one (the more you take, the more you leave behind, what am I), Ange kneels behind him, hand tight in his hair, and clips a clothespin to his other nipple. After the second (a circumorbital hematoma is more commonly known as), he bites his shoulder until Grantaire worries he might be breaking skin, and he lets out a strangled whine. After the third (what belongs to you, but other people use it more than you), he rips off one of the zippers.

Grantaire almost comes up off the mat, the pain burning through him a moment after the distinctive _clclclclick_ sound that gives the device its name. He must’ve made some kind of sound of his own when it did, because he finds himself grunting on every panted exhale. Ange holds him back against his chest with an arm around his shoulders and a hand wrapped in rope. He laughs while Grantaire’s heart races, endorphins making his head spin. “Oh, that was beautiful.” He says, the softness of his tone juxtaposed with the line of twin red marks that go up Grantaire’s thigh. “Just gorgeous, darling, you’re so responsive, even when you’re trying not to be. Like something straight out of my wet dreams. I could get used to that. What do you think? Should we go ahead and do that again?”

“No.” Grantaire says, more harshly than he intended, shaking his head. (He’d seen a video once of a girl shrieking and sobbing when a zipper was torn off her chest, clothespins making a mean circle around the meatiest part of her breast like some twisted kind of petals. He’d rolled his eyes at the time, marking it off as overacting, the performance of pain for the sake of the voyeur. Now he understands the impulse.)

Ange simply hums something like a chuckle. “Then you’d best hope you know the next answer, I suppose. A bit of trivia for you next. Where was the printing press invented?”

“Gutenberg.” Grantaire mutters to himself, head still spinning, and he struggles to remember and to remember quickly enough. Somewhere at least one of his history professors is having a fitful night’s sleep just because of him. “France or Germany, I can’t fucking _think_ —”

Ange circles back to sit in front of Grantaire again, leaning back in his chair, with a smile that can only mean trouble. “I didn’t ask about Gutenberg. The oldest known printed text is actually from—“

“China.”

Ange freezes, eyebrows raised, before bursting into laughter. “Yes, China. Aren’t you clever. Why didn’t you say that to begin with?”

“Most people think of Gutenberg.” He shrugs.

“I’m aware, that’s why it was supposed to be a trick question, and I am sorely upset you figured it out.”

Grantaire grins. “Clearly you’ll just have to try harder.”

“How would you drop a raw egg from a height onto a concrete floor without cracking it?” Ange asks, blithely ignoring R’s commentary.

“You…can’t?”

“It takes more than an egg to crack a concrete floor, darling.”

“ _Motherfucker._ ”

And that’s how Grantaire goes right back to getting questions wrong.

Ange graciously doesn’t pull the zipper off right away, instead dragging the chair closer and digging the heel of his shoe into Grantaire’s inner thigh muscle until he lets out a high-pitched groan behind his teeth. For a moment, he remembers admitting his boot worship related thoughts to Ange and imagines something with heavier soles digging into his skin, and god, he can practically feel his pupils dilate.

Ange hums, shifting to rest his foot lightly against R’s crotch, and it's so strangely, absurdly hot that Grantaire can't help thrusting up against him, his now-softened dick quickly filling up again. Ange laughs, and when Grantaire looks up at him with a dazed expression, he realizes Ange had asked him a question he didn't even hear, couldn't possibly try to answer, and he twitches away, visions of the other man’s heel grinding against his cock instead of his thigh flashing in his mind.

He doesn't, simply lets his foot drop back to the floor, but the possibility was enough to make real, genuine fear well up in Grantaire’s throat. “Not today.” He says, but R sees his hand fall briefly to his own crotch before he yanks the other zipper off and Grantaire can see the pain exploding behind his eyelids.

He jerks back so hard he loses his balance, and in his surprise he overcorrects, lands hard on his shoulder instead of his back with a soft grunt of pain. Thank fuck for the padded matting, huh.

He finds Ange standing over him when the adrenaline starts to fade, an amused expression on his face, and the other man wraps a hand in the rope and hauls him back upright. “I'm not done with you yet.” He says, sternly, and Grantaire finds an unprompted apology spilling out of him. Ange answers with the tap of a palm against his cheek, by no means gentle, and smiles. “No need. You're simply distracted from our little game right now, aren't you? Don't worry. I'll take care of that.”

Grantaire shudders.

“What am I going to do with you now, though. I’m out of clothespins.” Ange continues, clicking his tongue. Grantaire doesn’t even have the sense of mind to make a smart remark about it. “Well. I do have _these_ ,” he flicks one of the pins clipped to his nipple again, “but I’d rather save them for last.”

R pointedly does not offer up any ideas.

Ange tangles his fingers in Grantaire’s hair, directing him to get up on his knees, and tells him to keep his eyes straight ahead. He gets something Grantaire can't see from out of his bag and circles back around him. Grantaire remains perfectly still. That is, until the first soft blow lands on his shoulder blade, and he twists around in surprise.

Ange is quick to correct him, hand back in his hair, so tight his eyes start to water, and forces him to face forward again. “What did I _just_ say.”

“But—” R begins, voice strained, but Ange cuts him off.

“No, I know what you want, darling. You just wanted to know what it was I was hurting you with. That's alright. I'll tell you.” Something rough is shoved into his chest, jostling the clothespins and making R hiss through his teeth. He strains against the hand in his hair to look down and see what it is in Ange’s hand and gets only a glance of red. “You wanted me to make my rope hurt for you. What better way to do so than to beat you with it?”

It hits him all at once (in more ways than one, because Ange smacks him lightly in the chest with it to emphasize his point), Ange has appropriated a heavy bundle of his rope to use as a flogger and Grantaire is too stunned and surprised to speak.

The pretense of the game has long since fallen away, and Ange gets a rhythm, rope thudding lightly across Grantaire’s shoulders. It doesn't hurt, really, not for long and not with the knots of the TK shielding him from much of it, but every now and again the ends of the rope snap against his skin and it stings enough to hold his attention. He is surprised to find that when he hears the rope hit the mat, his upper back is burning hot. Ange so kindly reiterates this fact by dragging his nails harshly down his back, and Grantaire lets out a sharp “ _ah_.”

“Do I have your attention now?”

“Ngh, yes.” R pants, letting his head droop towards his chest, only looking up when Ange’s feet come in view again. “Yes.”

“Good boy.” Ange says, dropping back into the folding chair, with a frankly ridiculous manspread that leaves Grantaire’s head spinning thinking about kneeling between his knees and sucking him off. “You want to know something I find interesting, my dear?”

Grantaire doesn’t expect him to wait for a response, but he does wait, and R’s not feeling entirely in his right mind, so he only manages to raise his eyebrows in a universal inquisitive gesture.

Ange grins at him, amused. “For someone who likes to talk in circles so much, you aren’t very good at the riddles.” He must make an affronted sound, because Ange laughs. “You’re much better at the trivia. Why is that?”

He pointedly does not point out that riddles require a certain amount of cleverness that Grantaire does not currently possess, far too sluggish and out of it for the best of his smart-assery, where trivia almost entirely relies on _luck_. You only get the question right if you happen to already know the answer. Instead he simply shrugs, hands gesturing behind his back in a vague way that Ange can’t even see.

The other man merely hums and studies him with a thoughtful expression until Grantaire starts to squirm, then he asks “What’s generally considered the oldest surviving long poem in Old English?”

Grantaire says “Beowulf” without thinking and Ange grins at him like he’s won something. “That’s like entry-level literature shit, that’s nothing.” He says, defensively and with the air of someone still arguing a point they know they can’t hold, completely unsure what kind of accusation he’s defending himself from.

“Lie back.” Ange says, simply, one hand tucked in the rope around Grantaire’s chest to help ease him back without falling. It’s not exactly comfortable, and he has to arch his back and plant his feet flat to keep from crushing his arms under his own weight. Ange knocks his knees apart to sit between them, somehow managing to still look terribly regal. “Next question. What was Lycaon of Arcadia transformed into by Zeus?”

Grantaire huffs, quietly, and meets Ange’s bright gaze for a moment before closing his eyes as if in thought. He knows the answer, but old habits die hard, as they say, and he doesn’t want to give himself away so easily. “A wolf,” He says, eventually, begrudgingly, “along with his offspring. It’s in the name, you know, Lycaon, lycanthropy, the first werewolf, it’s not that—”

Ange cuts him off by dropping an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of Grantaire’s thigh, taking his breath away, but then he _bites_ , and it’s all Grantaire can do not to thrash him off.

“What the fuck was that for? I was _right_.” He demands, when Ange sits back up again to smile at him.

“That,” Ange says, evenly, “was for pretending you didn’t know.”

Grantaire groans, letting his head thump back against the mat. “I wasn't—” he says, but it's a bad lie.

“Sure you weren't.” Ange says, disbelievingly. “Just taking your time, hm? Because you knew the answer as soon as I asked it, didn't you? Well, best tread carefully, because I know you'd so hate to lose now, when you're so very close. Hips up.” Grantaire obeys, and Ange peels off his boxers, taking him in his hand very, very loosely. “Last one.”

It's remarkably difficult not to dig his teeth into his lip, anticipation curling up in his ribcage. He'd never much been a fan of luck.

“Who was the first woman to be interred in the Panthéon on merit?”

It takes a second, (likely because of the infuriatingly gentle way Ange is touching him, a ring of his two fingers sliding slowly up and down his long since-softened-but-quickly-stiffening cock) but only a second: he knows better than to hesitate this time around. “Marie Curie.”

Ange firms up his grip, and it feels a little bit like Grantaire has been holding his breath and he only just now managed to exhale. He sighs in relief, toes curling as Ange switches to quick, short strokes near the head of Grantaire’s cock, building him up hard and fast. _Too_ hard, _too_ fast, and R feels like it’s going to burn him up alive. There is a moment where he’s moaning on every short exhale, where he thinks Ange might slow down and draw it out, but then he doesn’t seem at all interested in slowing down or drawing it out, intent instead only on Grantaire’s face, the way his stomach tightens and his thighs tremble. “Tell me when you’re close,” says the man who seems absolutely determined to beat the world record for How Fast Grantaire Can Reach Orgasm, Like Physically, which R happens to be the record-holder for, out of sheer laziness, as opposed to this single-mindedness, and it was _nothing_ like this.

Grantaire can’t think of anything else except the hand on his cock, hardly even aware of anything else, except maybe the unbearable weight of Ange’s stare. It’s difficult to even breathe, even though his mouth is probably permanently pried open at this point while he gasps for it, and he barely manages to force out a “ah, _ah_ , fuck, closeclose _close_.”

“Good boy.” Ange says, and R is surprised that he doesn’t come right then and there, from the scratchy quality of his voice and the quiet warmth of praise. Then Ange removes the forgotten clothespins from Grantaire’s nipples, one after the other.

Grantaire either A. shrieks or B. blacks out (though there is that last possibility C. which is both) but he isn’t sure because he’s fairly certain he left his body entirely when it happened, and he came at almost the same time the pain hit, the latter a microsecond after the former. It gets his fucking wires crossed, and it can’t tell if it hurts to come or if he comes from the clothespins or whatever the hell just happened to him. He’s shaking a bit when he comes mostly back to himself, wondering if that’s what sex magic and astral projection feels like, sweat making his hair stick to his forehead and his shoulders a little bit strained.

“—the blood rushing back to your nerve-endings, you know.” Ange is saying, conversationally, when R can process sounds again, and he’s still touching Grantaire, making him groan. It doesn’t hurt, really, but also it definitely _does_ , too much of a good thing, perhaps, and Ange only stops when Grantaire gasps out a ‘ _stop.’_

He’s still only partially present when Ange props him up to untie him, asking him softly if there’s any numbness in his hands, somehow understanding when Grantaire says “er’tingly” and apologizing for it, rubbing both his hands against each of Grantaire’s own until he seems satisfied. When he feels most like himself, Ange has cleaned him up and told him to stretch, slowly, and is bundling his rope back into his bag. He sprawls out on the mat, stretching his arms over his head, and idly he mumbles something about how they could try overstimulation sometime, because it really is something he’s thought about and Ange had really hit some kind of nerve this time around, but he’s just a hair too out of it to put the words together in a way that makes any sense.

“What was that?” Ange asks, even though he’s smiling at Grantaire with an expression R can’t really get a grasp on, but it’s warm, and he rather likes it. (He’s not sure if he should like it, if he doesn’t know what it is, and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to think about it.) “I’m sure I must’ve misunderstood, because I know you didn’t just casually suggest something that sounds a lot like post-orgasm torture to a sadist.”

Since Grantaire had been teasing him for it, Ange sure does like to remind Grantaire of that moniker. R feels his mouth twist to one side while he tries not to grin. “And why not?”

“Because I will absolutely take advantage of that offer, my dear, and I know you’re smarter than that.”

He cracks open an eye. “But we can talk about it.”

Ange laughs. “Yes, fine, we can talk about it. Someone’s sounding a bit more like themself. I was worried for a moment I broke you.”

Grantaire slings an arm over his eyes and mumbles “Gonna take more than that.”

“There you are. Full of talk.” Ange reaches for the arm over R’s face, pulling him up and ignoring his groan of complaint. “Stop being dramatic, smart ass, and come here already.”

Grantaire sits up and Ange wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him into nearly into his lap, simply holding him close. It’s warm and pleasant and just what he needs while he settles back down into the aching soreness that is his body after…all that. He takes the opportunity to turn his face into the crook of Ange’s neck, and if he simply breathes him in for a moment it’s not weird (it’s _not_ ), because the man just hurt him in a variety of creative ways and R is allowed to take comfort where he can. Which reminds him. “You’re still _clothed_.”

“Astute observation. You don’t have to sound so displeased about it.”

“I _am_.”

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Grantaire blinks. “Why would that make me uncomfortable?”

Ange is quiet for long enough that he has to lift his head to look at him, and he finds him staring thoughtfully off into space. “Regardless of how our last scene ended, and despite a number of our conversations, you have yet to suggest that you wanted anything sexual from this. You _agreed_ to stimulation, but hadn’t asked for it. I was worried I might have crossed a line, last time, asking you to think of me while you touched yourself, even if you didn’t protest it, and I wanted to be sure you didn’t feel like that was something I was pressuring you into. While I really, really did enjoy causing you pain _and_ pleasure today, I wanted to be sure you didn’t expect to have to reciprocate in kind.”

“Oh.” Grantaire says, slowly. “I did, though.”

“What?” Ange must try not to, but he stiffens beneath him and Grantaire can feel it.

“No, I mean, I did…think about you. Have thought about you.” When he looks back up to study Ange’s expression, he finds one of those sharp smiles on his face, even though he’s still looking elsewhere.

“Is that so?” He asks, delicately, but he sounds pleased.

“Yeah.” Grantaire says, on an exhale.

Ange lets out a similarly slow breath, turning his head to kiss the top of Grantaire’s curls. He thinks it must be something he just _does_ , this casual physical affection along with the endearments, because he’s had his hands on Grantaire as much as possible since they first hugged, that time. He’d mentioned it being an important part of aftercare, for him, the physical closeness, but this seems different—more natural, perhaps. An extension of his comfort level with Grantaire. “Good boy,” he says, and goosebumps erupt on Grantaire’s skin, “We’re going to need to talk about that, we are definitely going to talk about that, but—we don’t have to talk about it right now.”

“Okay.”

“Check in with me, instead. How are you feeling?”

“Warm.”

“That’s good. Does anything hurt?” He pauses. “In a bad way, I mean.”

“Mm, no. Just aches a bit. Like after a workout. I think I can feel that bite bruising as we speak, though.”

Ange traces the place where he’d dug his teeth into Grantaire’s shoulder with his fingers, pressing lightly into the tender spot and making R groan. “Clothes now, or later?”

Grantaire shrugs, makes a noncommittal sound, and curls closer to Ange, which makes him laugh.

“Alright, in a minute, then.” He says, chuckling, but then he trails off, disentangling from Grantaire just enough to reach for his bag and fish something out of it. It turns out to be a pen, and he takes R’s arm and writes something on the inside of his wrist.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s…” Ange hesitates on the last character, felt tip of the pen stilling on Grantaire’s skin for a brief moment before he follows through. “My phone number.”

R thinks he can feel his heart freeze in his chest.

“You don’t have to use it, but I thought it might help with the drop, for both of us, if we were to actually hear each other’s voices.” He releases Grantaire’s wrist and R has to resist the urge to run his fingers over the numbers lest he smudge them off. “It’s entirely up to you, of course, and you can always text me if you’re more comfortable. I’m usually more easily accessible there than through the forum’s private messaging, anyway, so it’s probably better for you to have it as an option, even if you don’t use it.” He hums thoughtfully. “I’ve been keeping my browser open on the forum while I work even though I know I shouldn’t, I didn’t want to miss your messages. This should be easier for both of us.”

“Thank you.” His voice comes out more quiet than he intended, nearly reverent. He takes care not to meet Ange’s gaze.

“Please don’t be afraid to reach out to me if you feel unwell any time in the next couple of days, alright? You don’t have to wait for a crash and burn for your feelings to be worth discussing.”

God, when did Ange get into his head? And how did he sit in it so comfortably, when even Grantaire hadn’t been able to do that for years?

“Besides,” he continues, “top drop is also a thing. I want to hear how you’re doing tomorrow, even if it’s just one check in. Can you do that for me?”

There are a lot of things Grantaire could do for Ange if he asked, like that. He nods.

“Good.”

He saves the number into his phone the moment he’s alone, and tries not to scrub it off in the shower. Nonetheless it’s still barely legible when he crashes into bed. He supposes it doesn’t matter much. He traces it enough with his fingers he might already have it memorized by heart.

It’s not weird. It’s _not._

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Good morning, sunshine!” The overly-bright greeting is the only warning Grantaire gets before something comes flying at his face when he opens his bedroom door. His surprise and alarm is tempered only by his sluggishness, and he very narrowly catches the thick packet of whatever it is before it smacks into his nose. He blinks at the object now in his hands, strangely heavy and plastic wrapped, trying to make sense of it in that still-dreamy states of just waking up. The voice, apparently, belongs to Éponine, who is sitting with her feet propped up on the arm of his sofa. “I was just trying to decide if I was going to worry about you being dead before I leave for work.”

“Thanks,” he says, dryly, voice still heavy with sleep, “what’s this?”

“Makeup remover wipes. Since you keep disappearing wherever it is you keep going and Musichetta says I shouldn’t let you fuck up your skincare so much scrubbing it off with soap.”

Grantaire decides not to mention the fact that he didn’t wear any makeup last night, actually, because that seems like the kind of thing she would make fun of him for. “‘Preciate it.” He says, instead, before wandering like an extremely sleepy ghost into the kitchen to make coffee. “Where is everyone else?”

“I dunno, out.”

“Okay. Good for them. And what are you doing here?”

He usually knows JMB’s plans and schedules, so entwined they are in each other’s lives, and he probably knows where they all are right now if he thinks really hard about it, he just doesn’t want to think that hard. Éponine, on the other hand, he never has any idea about unless she tells him. Even when she shows up in his own home.

She sits up to grin at him over the back of the couch, and he simply raises an eyebrow. “I have news.”

He yawns and clicks the machine on by way of reply.

“Remember the girl Marius fell in love with?”

“A new one, or are we still talking about the one in the bakery?”

“The _bakery_ , R. We’d been going back there hoping to run into her again, trying to track her down without being huge creeps, because Marius wanted me to get her number for him,” Grantaire kindly does not point out the fact that she would never have agreed to help _Grantaire_ get a girl’s number for him, because even if he’s a huge nerd Éponine has a softer spot for Marius than she does for most people, cats, or other fuzzy animals, including R, “but she hadn’t turned up again, and ‘beautiful’ and ‘at a bakery’ doesn’t exactly give us much to go on. So Marius has been moping, because it must’ve been one of those missed connections, right? Those moments that could’ve meant something but slipped you by?”

“Poetic. Okay.” R holds up an empty mug and gestures to it by way of asking if she wants any.

“Yeah, no sugar. So here’s the thing, Marius is hoping and I’ve finally got him to stop swearing off love or whatever, because he’s like that, and then he calls me at the ass crack of down one morning before his class.” (It hurts sometimes, to hear about Marius and his many degrees and his grad school classes, when Grantaire’s life had gone so off the fucking rails fighting tooth and nail for his one, useless art degree. But while he never gets used to it, and it never goes away, it is, at this point, routine.)He drenches his coffee in milk and sugar as is his fashion before joining Éponine on the sofa, passing her a mug of her own before offering her the creamer tucked into the crook of his arm.

“Thanks.” She takes a long sip before continuing with her story. “So he’d gone by himself. Just for coffee and a pastry, supposedly, but you know how he is. And she’s there.”

He can’t help the way his eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and she seems pleased by this reaction. “So what did he do? Get her number on his own like the rest of us?”

“Hang on, I’m getting to that. It turns out she doesn’t just work there, she’s the _head baker_. So she’s really only ever out of the kitchen in the mornings, and she spends the rest of the day like, decorating cupcakes and developing new flavors or some shit. The only reason Marius had run into her the first time was because he got there super fucking early and she was putting stuff in the display case. Which is exactly what happens the second time.”

“And then he calls you in a panic.” Grantaire guesses, and Éponine smacks him with a throw pillow, almost making him spill his coffee all over himself. “Hey!”

“Let me tell the story!”

“I’m not stopping you, but the narrative pacing is horrendous.”

“Shut your mouth before I find some duct tape.” He imagines that would be a terribly effective threat if he didn’t know Éponine, but as it is, he does know Éponine, and he slurps a dramatic sip from his mug and waits for her to continue, unaffected.

“So he does actually try to get her number, right? And apparently she tells him he’s sweet or whatever, but she’s a lesbian.”

“Oh, no. Broke his heart, then. That’s why he called?”

“No, no, he called to ask if _I_ wanted her number.” She’s started laughing now, verging on a cackle, and Grantaire stares incredulously at her while she tries to get through the rest. “Apparently she was like ‘oh sorry honey, I’m gay’ and he was like ‘oh really? Hang on! My best friend’s bi! Have you met her?’”

R groans, covering his face with a hand even though he’s started laughing as well. “You’re kidding.”

“I am not.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Grantaire says, once he’s caught his breath enough to speak again. “You’d think he might, I don’t know, have a better way with words after all his fucking language studies.”

“I know! Fucking nerd, I’m telling you.”

“So what happened?”

She grins at him, cat in the cream, and Grantaire simply puts his mug down and gives her the flattest look he can manage until she answers. “I have a cute girl’s number.”

It’s his turn to fling a pillow at her. “No _way_.”

“I’m serious, I do, Marius dragged me there early this morning.”

“She gave you her number? Even after Marius acted like some teen lesbian’s supportive yet misguided middle-aged mom desperately trying to find her a date?”

“Yep. She said she thought he was cute.”

“Just like walking a cute dog in the park, huh?” She smacks him, and he laughs. “I don’t know what else you keep him around for.”

“He’s my friend, dickhead.” She lifts the pillow to hit him with it again and he instinctively throws his hands up to defend himself. She freezes. “What’s that?”

He realizes, with a start, that she means the traces of marker left on his arm from Ange’s number.

“Um.” He says, intelligently, and she grabs his hand to try and read the smudges before he can pull away again. “You’re not the only one who’s got someone’s number?” He thinks back to the game he’d played with Ange the night before, the way he’d hungrily watched him undress, the way he’d smiled when Grantaire had admitted to thinking of him. “I…met someone?” He can’t help the hesitant uptick at the end of his sentences, unsure how to explain without…you know, _explaining_.

“The not-a-thing guy from not-tinder, because you’re _not_ on social media?”

“Um, yeah.” Éponine is too smart for Grantaire’s own good. “That’s the one.”

“Uh- _huh_.” She stares at him for a long moment, before she continues in calculated, measure tones. “Grantaire, if you tell me you hooked up with someone last night without telling me, I will break your fucking neck.”

“Okay.” He says, and she stares blankly at him.

“Okay?”

“So I won’t tell you.”

“ _Grantaire!”_

This time he narrowly dodges her pillow attack. “I mean, it’s—it’s still nothing. I mean, not _nothing_ , it’s definitely, uh, something.” Yeah, it’s definitely something. Something where Grantaire flirts and teases and makes plans with a man he met under some of the least normal circumstances. Something where he thinks about getting the shit beat out of him six ways to Sunday and is also definitely starting to think about fucking six ways to Sunday on top of that, but Éponine does _not_ need to know any of that. “It’s kind of…complicated?”

She levels him with a look that can roughly be translated to mean either ‘what the fuck is ‘complicated?’’ or ‘of course it’s fucking complicated.’ He sighs.

“I wouldn’t call it hooking up, really.”

“Then what would you call it?”

He has to think about this for a minute. “Messing around?” God, that sounds bad. If what he and Ange have been doing is just messing around, anything more than friends with benefits might actually murder him. But it’s the best he can come up with. It’s not like these are dates, and it’s not like they’re just hanging out, either. Éponine seems to accept this answer though, so it’s fine. It’s all fine. He doesn’t have to think too much about it, which is fine by him for the time being.

“But he’s interested in you?” She indicates the number on his arm with a flick of her fingers. He shrugs. “Okay, well, he likes you?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Good.” She says, and she puts her hand on his sleeve to be sure she has his attention, and he knows this is a moment that he is meant to take very seriously. “You deserve the good things in your life, Grantaire.”

He grins back at her. For a moment, right now, at least, he believes her. “We both do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while. 
> 
> What do you think, should I do kinktober? Will I accidentally murder myself trying to do kinktober AND nanowrimo one after the other? Are my chapters too damn long or not long enough? Let me know in the comments or message me on tumblr [here](https://gopuckurself.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Special thanks to the anon who sent me the egg riddle, you're amazing, and so is everyone else reading this.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ll make a masochist out of you yet, hm?”  
> Grantaire thinks he might already have. “I’m definitely going to be thinking of that now, thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter: a numbered list, phone sex, a "school daze" party at Threshold, and a thematically relevant educational experience with a belt and a blowjob (It definitely isn't explicitly teacher/student role-play, it's definitely more of a joke, but I understand that's not everyone's cup of tea and wanted to give a heads up.)

It has been a little over two months, verging on three, since Grantaire first stepped foot in Threshold. He knows this because there have been three Waffle Days in the meantime, the seasons have begun to change, and he and Fantine have taken down the sunny, summery window displays and replaced them with something orangier and more autumnal.

He didn’t call Ange, but they’ve been texting. All together, they’ve been messaging on and off (but mostly on) since that night after the first event,but Grantaire isn’t reading too much into it. He’s been messaging Lark almost as often, though their conversations are on wildly different topics than his ones with Ange. That is not to say all their talking leads to kinky experiments. He learns a lot about Ange, too. He has a mental list.

1\. Ange’s job is definitely interesting. He travels a lot. He goes to workshops ( _bondage_ workshops), makes appearances at conventions ( _bondage_ conventions), and flies out to meet certain models he’ll be working with ( _bondage models_ ). It’s wild. Grantaire’s never going to get used to it.

2\. He has a patreon, but he doesn’t agree with some of the changes they’ve made to the TOS, which is apparently symptomatic of a bigger problem involving censorship and a pushback against freedom of expression in society and on the internet that Ange angrily texted him about and Grantaire didn’t entirely understand, and he’s looking for an alternative. (This is apparently something he feels very strongly about. He apologizes for ranting, but Grantaire doesn’t mind.)

3\. He’d studied journalism and writing at school, and only picked up photography when he took a class in his senior year to fulfill an art credit. It drives Grantaire completely fucking crazy. He considers throwing his phone at a wall when he finds out.

_Are you shitting me? R._

_What? It was an intro-level class. I’d been told it was easy. I’d been told the theater class was easier, but it filled up too fast. Don’t make fun. Ange._

_Ange, I literally have an art degree, and you’ve made more of a living in my field than I have. R._

_Oh, god, don’t tell me that. Now I’ll have to hide all my work from you. Ange._

_Don’t. It’s amazing, I swear, and I’m not much of an artist these days. R._

_What is not much of an artist doing with an art degree? Ange._

_I wanted to be a conservationist, studio art, art history, and chemistry were the closest I could get. R._

_Wanted? Ange._

He has to ignore the pang in his chest. He brushes it off as best as he can without drawing attention to it. _School’s not for me. What’s a journalist doing with a photography career? R._

 _Sometimes people listen more to the things they see than the words they read._ Ange says, which sounds like a steaming pile of poetic bullshit, because people don’t listen to anything they don’t want to hear, and Grantaire isn’t sure what any of that has to with pictures of people tied up, but it’s sweet, in a way, and so he doesn’t argue with Ange about it. He argues with Ange about everything else instead.

4\. He is a freelance writer on top of being a freelance photographer, though. (Grantaire is not sure how he manages. Does kink photography pay that well?)

5\. He often listens to movie scores while he works. (He likes all kinds of movies, but prefers to only read nonfiction, creative or otherwise. And he does actually watch Jeopardy, when it’s on.)

6\. Ever since their last scene, they’ve been discussing sex far more freely, and ange apparently has no qualms about making as many forward suggestions as he likes. He never mentions penetration, though, because Grantaire had decided that was against the rules the first time it’d come up and Ange had never brought it up again. R doesn’t know why he did that. It’s not like he hasn’t had meaningless sex in his life. It just felt like…he should have some boundaries. So that became one. But he’s been regretting that decision ever since a particularly graphic dream that popped into his head a few weeks later.

7\. Even though he doesn’t bring it up, Ange doesn’t exactly help with this. He is _way_ too fond of figuring out when Grantaire is at work, sending him wildly inappropriate messages, and laughing at his increasingly more and more alarmed reactions.

_Do you wear makeup often? I’ve been thinking about a pretty boy sucking me off and smearing his lipstick, lately. Ange._

_I AM TRYING TO WORK. R._

_Sorry, am I distracting you? Ange._

Grantaire discovers that he likes a man in lace in a very similar fashion.

8\. However, it turns out, Ange doesn’t like to dress _up_ for scenes or events at Threshold. He likes to dress _nice_ but not necessarily _up_. There’s a difference, apparently.

_No assless chaps and studded harnesses for you, then? R._

_That’s really more Jehan’s style. E._

9\. Apparently Ange doesn’t only have strong feelings about patreon, he has strong feelings about _everything_. They’re constantly getting into arguments (completely playful, mind you) that often end with Ange threatening to beat him. Or bruise him, or bite him, or—so what if Grantaire picks a couple of fights? It’s in his _nature_.

(It’s not just to see how many elaborate ways Ange can come up with to threaten him, of course, though that probably helps. _You don’t scare me_ , Grantaire writes back, one day, and Ange says _But I will_.)

10\. Ange likes Grantaire. He thinks he’s funny and clever, though R would fight him on both of those points if he could, and genuinely seems to enjoy talking with him about anything and everything. He finds himself texting Ange about awful customers at the bookstore and the silly things he gets up to with Joly and Bossuet and like, what he’s eaten for breakfast, and Ange never minds—in fact, he messages R about his own day just as much. He _likes_ him. Not only that, but Ange _wants_ him. (Which, he knew, obviously, but not like— _really_. Ange wants him, and he tells him so, and Grantaire keeps putting his face in his hands and screaming under his breath.)

It’s quite enough information, really, to make Grantaire decide to take a risk.

His phone sits quietly next to him on his bed, and he stares at it for a very long time. It’s late, after a long day at work, and while he knows that Joly and Bossuet are out, he doesn’t know if Ange is awake—he doesn’t even know if Ange will take his call, if he climbs out on this particular limb. He’d offered it for aftercare, specifically, not for…anything else. Not that Grantaire has any particular intentions, really, but he finds himself wanting to hear Ange’s voice again, now that he has the option. Although, while Ange might have figured out parts of Grantaire’s work schedule, Grantaire has yet to get a grasp on any of Ange’s habits. Part of it is likely due to the unpredictable house of a freelancer. But he always finds time to reply to Grantaire’s messages, at some point, always.

What’s the worst that could happen?

Ange could send him straight to voicemail, block his number, and never speak to him again. But he supposes that’s kind of outlandish, even for a worst case scenario.

Ange answers on the fourth ring, and his voice sounds a little bit hazy at the edges when he says “Hello?” like he hasn’t spoken in ages. Grantaire flounders for a moment. He hadn’t exactly planned this out. He’d been so worried about if Ange would answer him or not that he hadn’t thought about what to do if Ange actually _did_. “R?”

“Hey.” Grantaire says, in a rush, on an exhale. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“No.” Ange says, but Grantaire isn’t entirely sure he believes him. “But you’re a welcome distraction from some work-related stress. I have a deadline the day after tomorrow, and I had to cancel on some friends today, which makes it the third day in a row I haven’t had much human contact. Believe me, I’m very glad to hear from you.”

“Third day in a row?”

There’s a pause from the other end of the line. “I may have a few unhealthy work habits, thank you for the reminder.”

“If you need to get back to it—“ Grantaire begins, but Ange quickly interrupts him.

“No, no, like I said. You’re a welcome distraction. A favorite of mine, lately.”

Grantaire is glad he can’t see how widely he grins at that. “Is that so?”

“Mhm.” Ange hums, so quiet and low that Grantaire can feel it, a vibration through the speaker more than a sound. “Didn’t I tell you I was thinking about making a pretty boy scream recently?”

“I didn’t know you had any particular boys in mind.” Sue him if he’s being a little coy. He wants to hear Ange say it, now that he knows. He’s grown rather accustomed to hearing it, and he likes it. That’s not a crime. And he doesn’t have to justify it to his own thoughts, for fuck’s sake.

“No? Then allow me to be more specific. I’ve been thinking about you, R, all tied up and pretty, while I hurt you. While I play with those beautifully sensitive nipples of yours. Maybe I’d jerk you off if I was feeling nice, but I don’t think I’d let you come. Not if I wanted to hear you scream.” All of Grantaire’s breath leaves him in a rush. Ange must hear it, because he laughs. “Would you like that?”

“Yes.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Because I’d keep some ice nearby, just for you, just to keep you honest, sweetheart, and when you start to get close I’ll ice you back down until you go soft again. Then we’d just do it again. And again. Until you couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Fuck.”

He can almost, _almost_ hear Ange’s smile. It’s familiar to him now, as recognizable as his voice. “Do you still like the idea?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll make a masochist out of you yet, hm?”

Grantaire thinks he might already have. “I’m definitely going to be thinking of that _now_ , thanks.”

“You’re very welcome. I told you, I like the idea of you getting hard while you think of me.” There’s another long pause, and Grantaire listens to the quiet sounds of his own breathing, waiting. The moment feels thick and slow. He’ll remember it later in hyper-vivid detail. The thin tinny sound that let him know Ange was still on the line, the distant whir of traffic and the lazy brush of air from his ceiling fan. The pattern of the light on the walls. It’s a pause with weight. “R.” Ange says, quiet. “Now may not be the most appropriate time to ask this, but…what color would you rate phone sex?”

He laughs, despite himself, a little too high-pitched while his blood rushes in his ears. “Green.”

“Is it something that could be on the table right now?”

Grantaire glances at his door, just to be sure that it’s locked, even though he knows no one is home to intrude. Somehow that seems like it will make or break his answer. As if the lock would tell him whether this is something he can let himself have, even if he doesn’t know where he and Ange stand. As if the lock could tell him whether this is something he should say no to but won’t, even if he should. “Yes.”

“Good boy.” The words burn in the pit of Grantaire’s stomach, and there’s the sound of movement from Ange’s side of the call before he speaks again. “Here’s what I want you to do for me, then. You’re going to touch yourself, and you’re going to tell me what you’re thinking, while you do. And if I tell you to stop, R, you _will stop_. Understand?”

“Okay.”

“‘Yes, Ange, I understand, Ange’ you mean?”

“Yes, Ange, I understand, Ange.’ He mimics, unable to keep the sarcastic tone from his voice even as he tucks his phone against his shoulder and shimmies with some difficulty out of his jeans. He thinks he hears Ange mutter something along the lines of ‘smart ass’ which, okay, is probably fair. Successfully having undressed, he picks the phone up again, suddenly nervous for no explicable reason. “Where to begin.” He says, with his usual amount of carefully constructed carelessness, but he hears a shaky note in the words despite himself.

“Wherever you like.” Ange says, helpfully.

Grantaire drags his fingers along his thighs, remembering the way Ange had bitten him there in their last scene, and finds himself at a bit of a loss for words. Obviously it’s difficult to think of anything but Ange, Ange _Ange_ , with his quiet breath on the other side of the phone. Which is not bad, by any means. He just finds himself with a bit of stage fright. It’s not like he’s bashful or anything, but it’s hard to find the right headspace when he knows Ange is waiting. He doesn’t want to keep him waiting.

He spits into his palm, not bothering to reach for the lube because he’s almost out of it anyway, wraps a hand around himself, and begins to move, a bit hesitantly. He’d never been so self-conscious in the privacy of his own fucking bedroom. “Ange.”

“Yes? Go on. Speak your mind.” Ange waits another moment, and then laughs at him again. “What’s the matter? Not feeling talkative today? How very out of character for you, darling. That’s alright.”

“Sorry.” R says, an apologetic breath, while his dick begins to fill in his hand.

“Oh, no, that’s alright. But you’re going to have to stop.” Grantaire’s hand stills, surprised, and Ange repeats himself, sharper. “ _Stop_.”

Grantaire groans, releasing himself, fingers flexing. “Okay…okay.”

“Really, R. It’s not a difficult concept. You only get what you want when you do as you’re told. Would you like to try again?”

“…Yes.”

“Whenever you’re ready.” He takes a steadying breath, readjusting his phone in his hand and closing his eyes before he reaches down to stroke himself again, more sure of himself this time, but still slow. Just when he opens his mouth to say something, Ange adds, “I should probably clarify that I’m going to be sorely put out if you don’t say you’re thinking of me.”

Grantaire laughs. How could he not be thinking of him? How could he possibly be thinking of anyone, any _thing_ else? “I am thinking of you.”

“Mm. Very good start. Please continue.”

“You, here, with me. Watching.”

“Oh? Feeling the call of exhibitionism, are you?”

“No.” Grantaire says, too quickly to be believable but too shortly to be a lie. He gasps with another twist of his hand. Ange simply hums.

“Just want to put on a show for me, then? How sweet of you. You’d be so good for me, wouldn’t you? Tell me how.”

“I’d start…slow. Perhaps like I would if I was here alone. Take my time, you know? Like we have all the time in the world.” It’s a guess, but apparently a good one, because Ange hums again.

“Am I just there to watch, in this scenario of yours, or am I allowed to speak?”

‘Allowed.’ R knows, no matter how many times they say it, that he’s entirely in control of this situation—but it’s still so amusing to hear it phrased this way. “Depends. Are you going to behave?”

That startles a laugh from Ange, apparently. “I promise. Best behavior.”

“Then you may.” Grantaire says, magnanimously.

“In that case, I’d tell you if you’re touching your cock right now you’re not starting slow _enough_. Stop.”

Grantaire makes another irritated sound. “You said you’d behave.”

“This is me behaving, sweetheart. If I wasn’t, you’d know. Can you put me on speaker? I think you need both hands for this.”

Grantaire fiddles with his phone, turning it on speaker and settling it on his chest so that Ange can still hear him and he can hear Ange, careful not to have the volume too loud. Just in case. “…Okay.”

“You don’t have to sound quite so enthused.”

“Hang on, let me try again. Your wish is my command, sir! What would you have me do?”

“Cute. Didn’t I tell you no ‘sir’ yet? But you can start by running your hands all along your body, down your chest and the inside of your thighs. Do not touch your cock at all.”

“Tease.” He murmurs back, half-heartedly, as he does as he’s told, goosebumps trailing after his fingers.

“Oh, believe me, you’ve no idea. You’re nipples, next. Play with them like I would. As if I’m watching you.”

R briefly imagines Ange sitting at the end of his bed, head tilted to one side, watching, gaze hungry and sharp. Grantaire doesn’t have a chair in his room, he barely even has room for a chair in his room, but he’d be damned if he didn’t get one to prepare for this moment even in his fantasy scenario. The thought alone is enough to make him close his eyes again, shivering. He rubs distracted circles on his chest while he thinks. In the end even this is another guess, not entirely certain how Ange would play with him. He knows it would _hurt_ , though, because that’s what Ange likes, so he flicks a nipple with his fingers, then pinches hard enough to draw a whimper from his own lips.

An equally quiet, almost indecipherable sound echoes back from the phone on his chest. “You made it hurt, didn’t you? Pinched until it hurt? Say yes.”

He sucks in a sharp breath. In his head he sees Ange leaning forward in the imaginary chair, grinning at him like he’s won something. “Yes.”

“Oh, good boy. Very good boy. You knew that’s what I wanted, hm? I wish I was there to see it. Keep going. I want to hear that sound again.”

It’s harder to do a second time, or perhaps now he’s simply thinking about it too much. He imagines Ange smirking at him and switches to the other nipple, increasing pressure slowly until he has to grit his teeth. It’s nowhere near the pinch of the clothespins, or Ange’s hands, his own touch more hesitant than that, but it still sets his nerves alight. If he whimpers again it’s only partially for show. Precome leaks from the head of his cock.

“Mm. I’m not even there and you’re still hurting yourself for me, because I want you to.” He shouldn’t sound so pleased. It makes Grantaire’s breath hitch again. But he does, sound pleased. More then. “You can touch yourself now. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking—” His voice breaks off into a quiet moan as he strokes himself again, other hand still idly tracing patterns around the peak of his nipple. “How I wish it were you, touching me. How frustrating it would be if you were here, just…just out of reach.”

“But you’d want me to touch you like I did last time, wouldn’t you? Stroke you off?“ R can only moan again by way of assent. “Yeah, I thought so. Short, fast strokes, the way you seemed to like. The way that made you gasp and made your hips stutter into my hand, pretty, needy thing. I’ve barely touched you and still that’s all you want? Me to touch you?”

“Yes, or—” God, he will not ask Ange to fuck him, not now, because Ange doesn’t do renegotiation and Grantaire had set the rule himself: no penetration, Nonetheless, for some reason, sometimes it’s all he can think about. There are plenty of things he hasn’t tried that he wants to try with Ange, but this is…different. Perhaps that’s why—it’s one thing he still doesn’t really know. He’s never even seen Ange’s cock and yet he still finds himself fantasizing about it, inside him, in his mouth and on his tongue. “Yes.”

“But that was a reward, wasn’t it, R? You don’t get that for free. You have to earn it.” Even that sends a jolt of want straight to Grantaire’s dick and he bites the inside of his cheek. “Besides, isn’t that a little selfish of you?”

R’s rhythm falters. “What?”

Ange chuckles again. “I want to touch myself, too, you know. A man has wants and needs. I’d be touching myself if I were there, watching you hurt yourself just for me.” Grantaire can see it, now, Ange still looking at him hungrily, while he touches himself. It makes him groan. “Why should I touch you and bruise you when I could watch you do it yourself, all for me? When you could share some of the work?”

“Fuck.”

“Hm. Not today. Maybe another time.”

It takes a hazy second before understanding clicks in Grantaire’s brain, a choked laugh escaping him while the heat of an impending orgasm builds in the pit of his stomach. He deflects how much he wants that to be a serious offer by asking instead, “Are you touching yourself, now?”

“Mhm. But I’m taking my time, just like I would with you. And R?”

“Yes?”

“Here’s a new rule for today. You aren’t allowed to come before I do. So you’d better stop.”

“Fuck, Ange, no, I’m—“

Ange interrupts him immediately. “Do not disobey me, sweetheart. Unless you want to be punished?”

Grantaire is even closer than he realized, and his body hates him for it, but he releases himself and pauses to catch his breath. “Ange.” He says, but it comes out sounding like a plea.

Another low hum shakes the speakers of Grantaire’s phone. “Oh, but you have no idea what it does to me. Knowing you’d want to put on a show. Knowing you made yourself whine with hurt because you knew I’d like it. Knowing you’re being so good for me, even over the phone.” His voice gets increasingly breathier as he goes on, and R knows he’s stroking himself off, and the thought makes his fingers twitch with want. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much you make me want you.”

He says it like he wants to eat Grantaire alive, burn him up whole, from the inside out, raze him completely to the ground, and R thinks he might already be halfway there with the way his heartbeat has taken up residence in his throat while he listens, and imagines. He listens to Ange’s breathy moans, imagines the other man’s skilled, careful (gorgeous) hands wrapped around his (probably equally gorgeous) cock, and he wants, and he wants, and he wants.

Grantaire’s nickname is a growl on Ange’s lips when he comes, followed by a groan of relief and a quiet burst of laughter. “A welcome distraction, indeed.”

R’s fingers dig lightly into his thighs. “Ange.” He says, again.

“Mm, hang on.” There are more sounds from the other end of th eline, readjusting presumably, the sound of something that might be a zipper. “If you want something,” he says after a moment, though his voice is still sweet and heavy, dripping slow like honey, “you have to ask for it.”

“Can I—“

“Say please.”

“I—what?”

He repeats himself, slowly, a pause after each word, two patient, grinning periods in one sentence. “Say. Please.”

Grantaire flounders, face hot even though he’s alone in his room and there’s no one around to catch it. He holds his breath for a moment, closing his eyes. “Please.” He says, voice barely more than a whisper.

Ange laughs again. “Yeah, we’ll have to work on that. You can do better than that, surely.”

“ _Ange_.”

“Go ahead then. Come for me. Let me hear it.”

“ _Fuck_.” Grantaire says, in the same tone, because knowing Ange wants to hear him come is going straight to his head. “Fuck.” It takes a little effort to let himself make all the noise he usually holds back when he jerks off in his bed, and he has to keep his eyes closed so he doesn’t think about how hot his face is.

“Yeah, that’s it. Good boy.” Ange says, and it turns out that’s all the encouragement he needs. He gets a rhythm, biting his lip for just a moment before he remembers he isn’t supposed to, he isn’t supposed to be holding himself back, he’s supposed to make noise, because Ange _wants_ him to. “Yes, very good boy. Are you close?”

“Yeah. Yes.” Grantaire says, shakily.

“Then _come_.” Ange says, so low and quiet Grantaire almost falters. “ _Now_.”

And he does.

 

  


* * *

  


 

There’s another event coming up at Threshold, it turns out. Another party. Everyone on his friends list invites him, or asks if he’s coming. He waffles on if he’ll go or not, because he’s gotten rather used to the quieter nights at Threshold during the weekend, and the rope bite nights and munches elsewhere during the week when he has time, and he’s not really prepared for that much socialization again. That is, he waffles until Ange asks him.

_Are you going to theme night? Ange._

_I’m thinking about it. You? R._

_I have to go. I’ve been enlisted. Ange._

Grantaire has no fucking clue what that means, but it does tell him something: he is absolutely going to theme night, now, if only just to find out what it is Ange has been enlisted to do. Well. If his schedule allows, that is, but he’s willing too bargain to make that happen.

It’s only a little unrelated and a little while later that he texts Ange _I’d like to try some heavier impact play._ After a lot of thought. A lot of thought that had taken him quietly apart in the shower, in particular, and he’d bit down so hard on his hand to keep himself quiet that he’d left a neat little row of teeth marks. _Are you willing to help me with that? R._

The reply is surprisingly swift. _Absolutely. Ange._

It really doesn’t take much more convincing than that.

The theme turns out to be something along the lines of “school daze” and Grantaire once again finds himself wondering what the hell he’s going to wear. He imagines there’s going to be a lot of pigtails and short, plaid skirts, but he’s nowhere near brave enough to try something even remotely resembling a schoolgirl uniform. In the end he settles on a button down, suspenders, and tie, which turns out to be an equally popular choice. Apparently there’s not very much of a sexy alternative to the schoolgirl outfit besides full-on fetishwear. There’s a lot of leather around tonight, though, which a guy can cheerfully admire from afar. Inspired, he ditches the shirt and tie, but keeps the suspenders. Now it feels a bit like he’s on his way to some lady’s Magic Mike inspired bachelorette party, but he’s feeling (reckless) adventurous.

(It pays off.)

He gets there just in time for the doors to open, and he quickly discovers what exactly Ange meant when he said he was enlisted. In a sharp tweed blazer and tie, hair tied back in that same bun as the first time R met him, Ange steps into the middle of the social room and claps twice for everyone’s attention, looking cut straight from some teacher/student porn Grantaire probably couldn’t even afford. “Attention, please.” He says, and it’s _so_ not fair, the way he hardly even raises his voice and the room goes quiet. Judging by the way he grins, he knows it, too. The world’s quietest emcee. “School is in session. I’ll see you in my office.”

Apparently he’s playing headmaster tonight. There’s a desk and everything, set up just to the side of the main doors, where it seems Headmaster Ange is doling out punishment to anyone who wants it. A small line has formed by the time Grantaire slips into the play area after saying hi to Lark and Sera, who were more than happy to leave lipstick marks all over his jaw to really complete the look, and he considers joining the line before deciding it better to sit back and watch. It’s a bit silly and over-the-top, but Ange embraces it, laughing and goofing and generally charming everyone while taking none of it seriously. Grantaire sees the marks his mean little ruler leaves though—those are serious. They bruise. Watching more closely, he sees Ange check in with each person, a moment of sincerity amidst the fun. Probably making sure they know, and checking to see if they’re okay with it. That combined with the first sight of Ange being silly is…way more endearing than it ought to be.

If Grantaire was fucked before, he’s _really_ fucked now. Although, not literally. Regrettably, not literally. Not _yet_.

“I thought you said you don’t really dress up for these kinds of things.” He says, when there is a lull in the line, amusement clear in his voice.

Ange makes a noncommittal sound, straightening his tie, but there’s a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth while he pretends not to be looking at Grantaire. (That’s even more unfair. No one has the right to look _that_ good in a tweed blazer.) “I don’t know what you mean.”

R snorts. “Sure thing, professor.”

“That’s _headmaster_ to you, young man.” Ange says, with exaggerated seriousness, but when he turns to fully look at Grantaire, he stills in a way that makes Grantaire straighten a bit, hooking a thumb under a suspender strap and fidgeting with it awkwardly.

“Turns out there’s not really a sexy schoolboy outfit.” He says, reminding himself that he has been naked _and_ shirtless in front of Ange before, there’s no way Ange is surprised by his bit of tummy. His traitorous brain just wants to remind him how disproportionate he is at the least opportune times.

“Jesus, R, you should be illegal.” Ange closes the distance between them in a couple of steps, crowding R up against the wall he’d been leaning on and looking him up and down as if he can’t help himself. He recovers quickly, though, and (thankfully) steps back, giving Grantaire room to breathe.

He can’t think of anyone else who’s ever reacted to him quite like that.

(This is not to say there haven't been people in his lifetime who thought he was attractive and were very vocal about it, but they were never quite as loud as the people who didn’t, and as always, Ange is…something else, entirely.)

“Um.” He says, another of those horrible, cringe-worthy awkward laughs bubbling up his throat. “Thank you?”

“What, you don’t believe me?” Ange tilts his head, studying him thoughtfully for a moment before he reaches out to pull Grantaire close by a strap of his suspenders, backing up until he nearly hits the desk. His other hand rests lightly on Grantaire’s hip and his thumb strokes along the skin just above R’s waistband in a gentle way that makes him feel a little weak at the knees.

“It’s just…” He trails off, shrugging, unsure how to put it into words when he’s quite so distracted. Ange smiles, in what is either a reassuring manner or one that says he knows full well what his hands are doing to Grantaire, or both. He tilts R’s head up gently with a knuckle beneath his chin.

“I want to kiss you.” He says, very, very seriously, and Grantaire gapes like a startled, unattractive fish. When he gathers himself up enough to even begin to try to reply coherently, Ange hushes him with a hand over his mouth. “Ah-ah, no, you don’t have to say anything. At least, not right now. I did rather spring it on you. But you deserved to know. So just think about it, okay?”

Grantaire nods, and Ange steps away, and Grantaire is certain he’s flushed all the way up his chest and to his ears.

“So…” R begins, slowly, pushing a hand through his hair and deciding it best to deal with _that later_. At the moment, though, he’s never been so attracted to tweed in his life. “What’s with the ruler marks?”

“The band-aids? They’re just my party favor.” Ange grins, leaning against the edge of the desk now, twirling his ruler with his fingers. Unsurprisingly, in his hands, it looks like a weapon. “I might have a bit of a reputation around here, I suppose. And people think they’re cute. I picked it up from an erotica writer on tumblr.”

‘Cute’ is one word for it. ‘Mean’ is the word Grantaire keeps coming to, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking about it—the ruler does leave an unusual set of marks, though. A row of almost-rectangles, one bright skin-colored spot in the center of a long bruise. It does kinda look like a band-aid.

“Plus, it’s fairly on-theme, don’t you think? The ruler’s good for people who like a little teacher-student role-play.”

“Does that imply you like a little teacher-student role-play, then?”

Ange lifts an eyebrow at him, smile pure mischief. “Would you like to bend over my desk and find out?”

Grantaire is nodding before he even realizes he’s doing it. “Yes.”

Ange’s smile all but drops from his face, and he practically growls in response, the mischievous glow in his eye replaced by something a little more wild. His hands are on Grantaire’s hips again and he twists them both around, so now it’s Grantaire pressed against the desk and Ange pressed against him, thigh pushed between R’s legs in a way that’s frankly obscene.

“Uh.” R says, shakier then he would care to admit. “Right answer?”

“Oh, baby…” He says, hardly more than a whisper, giving Grantaire goosebumps. “You really are _something else_ , you know that?”

 _Baby_. That’s a new one.

“Come on.” Ange says, moving back enough to shrug out of his blazer, tossing it onto the desk. (Grantaire can’t decide if he’s more disappointed by the loss of Ange’s body pressed against his or the loss of the tweed, but he mourns the loss of both just the same.) “Come on!”

“Where are we going?” R asks, while Ange takes his hand and pulls him after him.

“We’re going out there,” He says, gesturing to the social area, “and we’re going to get a drink, and we are going to talk about this, on even ground, and someone else is going to have to play principal for a while, because if you’re serious about that offer, I am going to take you up on it as soon as possible.”

“I am serious.” Grantaire says, a little bewildered and maybe a little bit flattered by the effect he’s having on Ange. “We already talked about it, remember?”

“Good. Then this won’t take long. What do you want to drink?”

When Ange returns, two red plastic cups in hand, they find a quiet corner (or, a Threshold party's closest approximation of a quiet corner) and sit down to talk, just like he said. It’s not like they haven’t talked and negotiated before, they have, in depth. But it’s the first time they’ve ever spoken like this about it in person. Grantaire doesn’t have the luxury of hiding behind his phone screen this time.

“You did tell me you wanted to try some heavier impact play, correct?”

“Yes.”

Ange smiles at him, in such a soft, encouraging way that Grantaire can almost actually believe he can’t possibly say anything wrong right now. “And was there any particular implement you had in mind?”

Grantaire is suddenly dying of thirst, but he’s sure it’s totally unrelated. He takes a careful sip of his water. And, well, right now he’s really got thick wooden rulers on his mind, but that hadn’t been what he’d been thinking about when he’d texted Ange about this initially. He looks just past Ange when he answers. “I was thinking a belt.”

“Mm, I see. You want me to beat you with my belt, sweetheart?”

Sure that he’s blushing and completely unable to hide it, R nods, biting the inside of his cheek. “Yeah.”

“It’ll welt. Maybe bruise. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I—“ Another gulp of his drink. “I want the marks. I want you to…” He trails off. When he finally looks up again, Ange is looking at him like he’s fucking starving, but he closes his eyes for a moment and seems to get himself back under control in a matter of seconds.

“Wait. Before we take this conversation any further. Don’t you work tomorrow? I can’t be doing this if you won’t have time to rest and recover. As much as I want you sore and aching and unable to move without thinking of me tomorrow, I don’t want you sore and aching and having to move merchandise all day.”

“No, uh…I traded shifts with someone. I go in on Monday.”

Not that he was planning for this to happen. Absolutely not. And if he was, Ange certainly doesn't need to know that. Although it might be obvious.

“You might still be sore by then.”

“I can live with that.” Grantaire says, and watches a pleased smile spread across the other man’s face. “And I think it’ll be worth it.”

He puts a hand on Grantaire’s thigh, pulling him a bit closer, apparently unable to keep his hands to himself for long. Grantaire is not complaining. “Can I tie your hands again?”

“Yeah, yes. I’d like that.” He clears his throat. Takes another drink. Tries not to sweat. “How serious were you about the teacher-student thing?”

“As serious as you want me to be.”

“No, don’t do that.” R says, with a frustrated sound, though when Ange raises an eyebrow at him, he nearly loses his nerve. “I mean—I’m being serious. You always ask me what I want, but you never ask me for anything.”

Ange blinks at him, perhaps a little taken aback. He considers this for a moment, leaning back as he thinks, though his hand remains on R’s leg. “Alright.” He says, tapping his fingers in an incredibly distracting rhythm along the inseam. “I suppose that’s fair. I just haven’t wanted you to ever feel pressured, especially not by me. You simply trusting me enough to play with me, like we have, letting me introduce you to so many things, is more than I could ask for. I really am content to do whatever you like, however you want.”

“That’s not what I want.” Grantaire says, definitively, though he thinks his heartbeat might be visible, thumping so hard.

“No, and like I said, that’s fair. SO I’ll do better about letting you know what I want from now on.”

“Starting with…?”

“Fine, smart ass. Starting now. With this. I’m afraid I may have made it seem like I was more…enthusiastic about the idea of role-play, earlier, than I really am, but…” He pauses, cutting a look over to Grantaire, and it takes a moment for him to understand that this is Ange _embarrassed._ Embarrassed! Although about what, exactly, R has absolutely no fucking clue. “It is something I think would be fun to try, with you.”

“I can try it.”

“It doesn’t have to be very serious, or elaborate.” He grins, apparently getting over his embarrassment far more quickly than Grantaire would have been able to manage. “Maybe…consider it a theme night, just between us.”

“I’m not going to be able to call you professor with a straight face.” Grantaire says, honestly, though he’s fighting back a smile to match Ange’s.

“Oh, no. God, no, that’s not necessarily. But feel free to pretend I’m whichever professor you had a crush on from school, if you want.”

“That won’t take much pretending.”

“Oh?” Ange asks, eyebrows raised, and Grantaire only just now realizes what he’d just said.

“Um. I just—you pull it off, I mean. It’s a good look on you, that’s all.”

“Aw, darling, you’ll make me blush.”

R covers his face with a hand, shoving Ange with the other. “Shut up.”

“Careful,” Ange says, catching his arm and reaching over to pull Grantaire directly into his lap. “I might take that out on your ass.” He snaps one of R’s suspender straps before he can even protest. “Want to rephrase?”

Okay, yeah, he still kind of feels like a Magic Mike stripper, but he minds it way less when he’s in Ange’s lap. He occupies himself with fiddling with Ange’s tie, unable to bring himself to meet the other’s gaze when his face is burning so hot. “No, I’m good.” He says, after a moment, and smiles when he feels Ange’s grip tighten on his hips.

“Treading dangerous ground, darling. We can’t negotiate like this.”

No, but…Grantaire wants to kiss Ange, like this.

Instead, he loosens Ange’s tie a bit, just to have something to do with his hands. If he looks up at him through his lashes, it’s completely unintentional and he is totally, completely innocent. “What else is there left to negotiate?”

“R…” Ange says, a breathy exhale, tilting Grantaire’s head up again, fingers gentle on his jaw. “Sweetheart. Are you really gonna let a sadist take a belt to you without setting any guidelines first?”

“I'll tap out if I need to.” Grantaire says, stubbornly.

“I'm sure you will. But we still have to talk about it first.”

He doesn't make any move to push Grantaire away, though, trailing his hand down R’s bare chest.

“So…are we going to talk, then?” He asks, teasingly, and Ange rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, we're going to talk, and then I'm going to beat the smart ass right out of you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Have no fear, you will.” He nudges Grantaire out of his lap with purpose. “Now, sit down and talk.”

Grantaire laughs. “I'm not the one who got handsy first.”

“I'm sorry, did I say ‘sit down and sass me,’ or did I say ‘sit down and talk?’”

“I can multitask.”

“Every time you talk back to me I'm adding another number, my dear.”

“Number?” R blinks, and Ange smirks at him in that way that starts to make nervous.

“Mhm. Of how many lines I'm going to leave on your ass. So tell me, how many do you think you can take? Go on and aim high.”

Grantaire stares back at Ange for a moment, grasping for words. “Fifteen?” He offers, voice wavering far more than he would like, and goes for some water even though his cup has long since been empty.

“Jeans on, or off?”

He exhales slowly, looking out at the crowd to regain his composure. “Off.”

“Eighteen, then, absolute maximum, and you tap out if you need to, like you said. Any time you need to, understand? At any point. I’m going to need you to pay attention to your body for me, okay?”

“Okay. Yes. Okay.”

“Anything else you want?”

He studies Ange from the corner of his eye, and decides to take another risk. “I want to suck you off.”

It's pretty gratifying to watch Ange choke on his drink. “You—what?”

“I understand if it's something you're not…comfortable with it, I did spring it on you, but it's…” R clears his throat. “Been on my mind lately.”

“Is that so?” Ange says, sounding a little bit stunned, and Grantaire doesn’t have enough shame to not be pleased by that. “I would like that, R. I would like that very much.”

“Yeah?” R looks away, trying and (probably) failing to hide his smile. “Good.”

He feels Ange’s fingers on his jaw once more, turning his head back to face him. The other man’s smirk is sharp enough to cut glass when he asks, “You’re going to be so good for me, aren’t you, sweetheart. You want a reward for such good behavior? Want me to make you fall apart again?”

Grantaire swallows, and shakes his head, which apparently surprises Ange just as much as the original offer did, because he simply stares at Grantaire in wide-eyed silence until Grantaire says, “I want it to be more about you, this time.” Because that’s much easier to handle than ‘I’ve been thinking about your dick in my mouth for weeks now and I want to fucking savor it’ and far, far less mortifying.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.” Ange is on his feet by the time R finishes his sentence. “Where are you going?”

“To get us a goddamn room.” He says, over his shoulder as he goes. “I’ve waited to get my hands on you long enough.”

 

  


* * *

  


 

 

His phone buzzes in his pocket.

_Meet me. First room on the left. Ange._

It’s the same room they were in the first time, with the wax. When he gets there, Ange has the table in the center of the room again, leaning back against it with his arms crossed and looking very stern, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. That is, until he spots Grantaire hovering in the doorway and breaks into a smile. God. He doesn’t even need the tweed. “Shut the door behind you.” He says, brooking no arguments, despite his smile and the fact that he won’t find any arguments from Grantaire anyway. “Remind me of our colors?”

“Red for stop.” Grantaire says, slowly, because he might still be staring a little. Could anyone blame him? “Yellow for stop and slow down, green for good.”

“Good boy.” Ange says, and it still makes Grantaire shudder to hear it. He’ll never get used to it. He doesn’t want to. “Do you know why you’re here?”

The question takes him by surprise. “Um.” He says, stupidly, which is a great look on him, he’s sure, but Ange is still smiling at him so it can’t really be that bad. “No?”

“Why, R, I should think it would be obvious.” Ange continues, beckoning R closer until he’s within arm’s reach, and then he hooks his fingers in Grantaire’s suspender straps and hauls him even closer, nearly nose to nose. Grantaire almost stumbles into his chest. “This is an extremely blatant dress code violation, don’t you think?”

The question makes him laugh, although it comes out flustered and nervous. “I guess so.”

“Let’s not forget how many times you’ve disrespected me today. We simply can’t have that.” Slowly, he slides the suspenders off Grantaire’s shoulders. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Punish me?” Grantaire offers, hardly able to get the words out, staring pointedly at Ange’s tie yet again.

“Tempting, but no. Clearly I’m going to have to _educate_ you.”

Grantaire did not walk into Threshold this evening with this much of a teacher kink, but fuck if that comment doesn’t make his knees go weak. He nods mutely, glancing up at Ange to find him looking intently back. His hands drop back to R’s waist, fingers digging into him, the only clue that the man is any less composed than he appears.

“Untie my tie.” He says, simply.

R has possibly never done anything with such care in his life. He tugs it loose before using both hands to undo the knot. All the while Ange’s eyes never leave his face.

“Good. Now, my top two buttons…Good. Now, give me your hands.”

There is something absurdly hot about being tied up with Ange’s fancy ass tie, and when he pulls against it, the knot doesn’t tighten. This time he settles easily and quickly into the vaguely dream-like feeling it gives him, and he smiles at Ange, who laughs.

“You won’t be smiling so much in just a minute, believe you me.” He raps his knuckles on the table, sliding out of the way. “Since you’re feeling so enthusiastic, why don’t you go ahead and bend over and I’ll see if I can wipe that grin right off.” He says it like a request, but he puts a hand on the back of Grantaire’s neck and pushes him into the position he wants, nudging his feet satisfactorily apart with his own and trailing his fingers lightly down his back. “Have I told you how much I like your ass?”

That smacks Grantaire in the face with a wave of pleasant surprise mixed with self-consciousness, and he shakes his head, burying his face in his arms and tangling his fingers in his own hair.

“Can’t hear you.” Ange says, swatting Grantaire’s ass none too gently, immediately adding arousal to the strange stirring of sensations in Grantaire’s chest.

“No.”

“Oh, in that case, you should know. It’s my second favorite feature of yours.”

“…Second?” Grantaire asks, before he can stop himself. He regrets it immediately, but Ange simply hums, clearly taking advantage of the opportunity to grope him through his jeans, and R has to bite down on a groan. “Mhm. Your pretty, smart mouth is my favorite. I can’t wait to finally put it to good use. But I’m going to be sure you’re aching and _hurt_ before I let you have what you want.” Because he would find a way to turn Grantaire’s offer right back on him, wouldn’t he?

Of course.

He quickly loses himself in the feeling of Ange warming him up, a flurry of smacks interrupted only by Ange taking a moment to squeeze and pinch and grope, making R fidget until he is sharply reminded to be still.

“Look at you, so responsive as always. I’d bet money that you’re blushing right about now, it’s a shame I can’t see it.” Well, he wasn’t blushing until that comment, thanks _very_ much, but his dick is definitely beginning to stiffen in his jeans, which is not helping. ‘That’s alright. Like I said, I quite like this view as well. Do you think you’re ready to learn your lesson, R?”

 _God_. Grantaire is _so_ ready. He can feel the anticipation all the way down to his bones. “Yeah. Yes.”

“Good boy. We’ll go in fives, and I’ll check in with you after each set, so don’t float off too far, okay? I need you present and paying attention so you don’t get hurt. Am I understood?”

“Yes.”

In the silence that follows, the quiet clink of Ange unbuckling his belt almost sounds earth-shaking. “What have I asked you to do?”

If he drags out the waiting much more and keeps expecting Grantaire to be still, something inside Grantaire is absolutely going to snap. He wraps his hands even tighter in his hair. “Pay attention.” He says, but it comes out through his teeth, like the words are being pried slowly out of him.

“Yes, good boy.”

There’s the slick sound of leather sliding through belt loops, and then, a breath later, with no warning, the belt cracks against the meatiest part of his ass. “ _Fuck._ ” It doesn’t hurt, really, at least, not the way he’d expected, probably due to the layers of clothes softening the impact, but it’s _good_ , so good, and—yeah, okay, he thinks he should probably put ‘masochist’ down on his profile now.

It only really starts to sting by the time Ange starts speaking again. “I know you said you thought you could take it without the jeans, but I want to start you off slow, at least for the first few. How’s it feel?”

Grantaire exhales, shakily, shifting his weight on his feet. It burns even through all his clothes, almost itchy. The best reply he can manage is a quiet, strained sound and something incredibly eloquent and poetically inspired like “…Hurts.”

“Yeah, I should think so. Don’t worry about counting them, this time, I’ll keep track. Just feel it. I want you to focus on what you’re feeling. What I’m doing to you. Okay?”

“Mhm.”

“Oh, and…feel free to be as loud as you like.” Ange says, putting a hand on Grantaire’s lower back, pushing him back down into the present. Focus. Pay attention. “Now, breathe.”

R inhales and exhales deeply, then Ange lays into him.

It’s perfect, it really is.

He’s panting, cheek pressed to the table, muscles taut and eyes squeezed shut, when the first five is over. Fucking hell. And he wants more, he wants more of that pain, that sharp, alive, _perfect_ feeling, and he wants Ange to be the one to give it to him. What a distinctly human feeling it must be, surely no other animal would want this the same way Grantaire does, wanting to be hurt for the sake of it, for the way it makes him feel strangely at home in his body, for this moment after, where Ange is praising him softly, gently.

“You’re good, R. Very good.” His voice washes over him like heavy rain, and Grantaire is baptized in it. “How are you doing?”

“Ngh.”

“Not a very good answer, though I see I haven’t shut you up yet. Do we need to stop?”

“No.”

“If we need to stop, or if you’d rather keep your clothes on, sweetheart, I need you to—“

Grantaire interrupts him without even opening his eyes, not sure he’d be able to handle it if he did. “No, no. I want—more.”

There’s a long pause. It makes the thought of opening his eyes even more unbearable. “What was that? You want more?” He presses up behind Grantaire, their hips flush, and wraps a hand around him to palm at his through his jeans. Grantaire’s mouth falls open and when he moans, Ange grinds against him in a way that makes his brain white out. “Needy.” He says, more amusement than admonishment. R hears him set the belt down on the table, and then he’s unbuttoning Grantaire’s jeans and shoving them down with his briefs, none too gently. “I really ought to make you beg,” he muses, stepping away again, “but I’m feeling generous. Ready?”

He barely finishes nodding before he feels the snap of leather again, then the burn settles in, hot as a brand. The sound he makes this time settles somewhere between a howl in a whimper, and he slaps a hand down on the table twice, in an effort to keep from cussing Ange out.

“Is that good? Is that what you want? Or do you still want more?” He’s laughing at Grantaire, and it only serves to make the sting even worse, even hotter. ‘Want it harder?”

R takes a deep, shuddering breath. “No, fuck, no, just like that.”

“Good boy. Yes. Just like that. Keep breathing.”

This time Ange makes him wait, makes him guess, just like he did with the wax, and that makes it all the more exhilarating and excruciating at the same time. One here, two there, a long pause while he waits for Grantaire to stop fidgeting, another one. Grantaire is hot all over and he’s glad he’s not supposed to be counting because he’s pretty sure he lost count after the first five. Ange’s reminder keeps floating around in his head (focus, focus, focus) and he’s grateful for it. If he wasn’t paying attention, it would all blend together, and he thinks he’d probably lose himself in it.

“Last few, darling. Can you take it?” Ange strokes a reassuring hand up and down Grantaire’s back, waiting for him to calm down again.

His voice comes out high and thin. “Yes.”

No teasing, this set. A steady, overwhelming rhythm instead that has Grantaire almost shouting by the time it’s through. It stings, it stings, it stings, it _stings_. He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until both of Ange’s hands are on his shoulders, steadying him. “You’re alright, baby, we’re done. You’re through.” R groans in response, and Ange chuckles, circling around to untie his hands, rubbing the marks the tie left when Grantaire twisted them and ducking to catch his gaze. “Stretched my tie out, hm? I’m sure we’ll find some way you can repay me for that later. You’re done for now, let me take care of you.”

He’s boneless while Ange maneuvers them both, it’s a miracle he’s still standing, but at least he isn’t standing for very long. He doesn’t even care that his jeans are still only half-on, because Ange pulls him into his lap in a nearby chair and rubbing something cool into Grantaire’s too-hot skin in soothing circles. R doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t even really know at what point Ange got it out. He does know that it feels nice, and he knows that isn’t enough to make him forget what he’d promised. “Not done.” He mutters, after a minute, even though Ange’s light touch is making him whine, because he had felt Ange’s hard-on when he’d pressed against him, and he hasn’t forgotten how much he wants to follow through.

“Hm?”

“M’not done.” Grantaire repeats, slurred, and he’s probably not going to be capable of sentences longer than like six syllables for at least another half-hour. “I’ll repay you now.”

Grantaire doesn’t know how someone can manage to look at you gently, like putting a hand on your face, but Ange’s gaze is just as soft and surprised when he pulls back to look at Grantaire, and R thinks his heart might burst. “R…you don’t have to.”

Grantaire rolls his eyes and Ange snorts. “But I want to.”

“Bratty.” Ange says, but his voice is still full of something like awe. “We’ve been over this, sweetheart. If you want something, you have to ask for it.”

“God.” R huffs, wrapping his fingers in the front of Ange’s shirt and dropping his head on his shoulder. He stays like that for a moment, before gently pushing Ange back into his chair and sinking carefully to his knees. “Please?”

“I suppose that’ll do for now.’ Ange says, evenly, but Grantaire sees the way he swallows. He watches the other man’s hand slide up his thigh, pressing the heel of his hand to his groin and rubbing himself through the fabric there. “You still want this, even after I hurt you?”

In that moment, Grantaire has never wanted anything more in his life. He can’t even tear his gaze away from Ange’s hands to his face, mouth suddenly dry. He nods, as if this isn't something he'd been daydreaming about, hoping for. Now that it's here, he's surprised he isn't flat out drooling over it.

Though that does seem like it might be a distinct possibility in the near future when Ange pulls cock free and starts to stroke himself. Everything about him is glorious, from his fucking manspread to the hunger in his eyes to his cock, which is just as beautiful as Grantaire imagined. He could worship that cock, trace the veins with his lips, his tongue, his fingers. Memorize its smell, its taste. He wants to. He wants to, so much. “Ange.” He says weakly, shifting on his knees, still feeling the full force of his beating.

“ _Look at you_ ,” Ange says, as breathless as Grantaire feels, “so well-behaved. You want it so bad, don't you, but you're still waiting for permission, aren't you? I didn't even ask you to, but you are.”

“ _Ange_.”

“But we both know you're a smart ass at heart. Is that it? Are you only well-behaved when you want something?”

Oh. Oh. Something like shame stabs into R’s stomach, and he’s learning so many new and fun and wonderful-awful things about himself today, because he thinks he understands why Ange likes humiliation now. He doesn’t have time to analyze that feeling though, because he’s busy shaking his head, fingers digging into his own thighs, and saying, “No, no no, no—“

“That’s alright, darling. I won’t leave you wanting. But as we’ve established today, you’re in sore need of some instruction, so I can’t just give it to you.” He breaks off to moan, softly, but Grantaire feels it reverberating in his chest like it had in his phone’s speakers, feels it in his whole body. “I’m obviously going to have to _teach_ you.”

“Oh, hell,” is all R can say to that, nothing more than a pained whisper. Ange reaches out to run his hand through Grantaire’s hair, exceedingly gentle.

“You like that? Good.” He trails his fingers down Grantaire’s face, stroking his thumb across his bottom lip. “Can you reach my bag?”

It takes a moment for Grantaire to process this request, and he blinks calflike at Ange for a couple of breaths until it dawns on him. He looks around so quickly its as if his life depends on it, and he has to shuffle over a little on his knees to reach it and drag it back but he gets it.

“There should be a condom in the inside pocket.” He smiles when Grantaire hands it over, and promptly tears it open with his teeth, making R’s brain immediately decide to shut down while he watches him roll it on. “Now, you’ll do exactly as I say…” R nods emphatically. “Good boy. Start with a kiss.”

It’s nothing but the barest hint of the taste of latex, but Grantaire’s eyes still fall closed of their own accord as he inches a little closer, leans forward, and presses his lips to the head of Ange’s cock. Ange puts a hand in his hair, and he’s grateful for the steadying weight of it.

“Good boy.” He says again, warmly. “So good. Just the tip, now. Use your tongue.” He’s never done anything with as much care in his life. He hears Ange inhale sharply when he takes him into his mouth, and he outright moans when Grantaire’s tongue gets involved. He grins and Ange laughs. “Eyes up, sweetheart. That’s it.”

Grantaire could get used to looking up at Ange, halfway too wrecked, from his knees.

When he says “Now, show me how much you want it,” Grantaire practically dives forward, taking him as far down as possible and desperately wishing he was better at deep-throating, because he’s got an oral fixation the size of the Atlantic and because he’d like to hear the way it would make Ange gasp. He’s shocked by Ange pulling him off his dick by his hair, making his eyes water. But when he looks up, he finds Ange’s eyes closed, lips parted, breathing heavy.

“Ah, ah, no.” He says, and when he opens his eyes Grantaire realizes his mouth is hanging open and quickly snaps it shut. “Did I say that was allowed yet? No. Just your mouth and tongue. Just…show me.”

Grantaire kisses the head of his cock again by way of apology, before licking a stripe up the underside of it, pleased with the way it makes Ange’s grip in his hair tighten. He’s more than happy to do this, to simply worship Ange’s cock with his mouth, sliding his lips and tongue all along his length, making him moan, all the while denying himself. If he wasn’t dropped into subspace before, he’s catapulting towards it now, and he’s drunk on it.

“God, yeah, fuck.” Ange says, and Grantaire opens his eyes again to find him gripping the edge of the chair, head thrown back in pleasure. He hums around the tip, swirling his tongue, and Ange swears again. “Go on, then, take me into your mouth now, yeah, just like that.”

He lets Grantaire set the pace, bobbing his head like it’s his fucking job, and there’s nothing in the world but them and Ange’s moaning and the wet sounds of Grantaire’s mouth. It’s quite possible that Grantaire, in that moment, despite the fact that his ass still stings, is the happiest man in the world.

Ange’s voice gets rougher and rougher with every slide of Grantaire’s lips. “I want your hand, too.” He says, and R is incredibly happy to oblige. “Yes, good boy, _good boy_.”

He comes still murmuring praises for Grantaire, and Grantaire has possibly never been so fucking overjoyed by something in his life.

It takes a long time for Grantaire to come back to himself, after that.

Ange disposes of the condom at some point, and makes Grantaire tug his jeans back up to their proper place around his waist, to which R has many complaints, none of which he can vocalize beyond a wordless grumble. He thinks he hears Ange laugh, he isn’t sure, but it’s probably a safe bet. He actually dozes off a little.

“Hey, baby.” Ange says, and Grantaire blinks awake, limply curled up in Ange’s lap. Huh. So baby’s a thing now, too? That’s nice. “We only have the room for a few more minutes, so we’ll have to move. The social room’s cleared out a lot, though, so you can stay close as long as you need.”

“Mmkay.”

“Did you hear anything I just said or are you falling asleep again?”

Grantaire grunts. “I heard you.”

“You know, I don’t really believe you.”

R huffs again, sitting up to glare sleepily at Ange. “I’m offended you’re so coherent.”

“Ah, so you did hear me.” Ange laughs. “You slept through my incoherency, sweetheart.”

“I’ll just have to try again another time.” He says, pushing himself to his feet. He wobbles, though, and Ange is on his feet in a moment to wrap a steadying arm around his waist. R leans heavily against him, because he can and he wants to and he can and no one’s stopping him. He wraps a finger around one of Ange’s curls, that had come loose from his bun during their scene. He likes that, he decides. He likes the evidence of his handiwork on Ange’s appearance. “But right now, I might actually need you to carry me out. Your belt turned my legs to jelly.”

He’d been joking, of course, but that doesn’t stop Ange from sweeping him up bridal style and making him yelp, with only a minor grunt of exertion. Grantaire clings to him, embarrassingly giggly and breathless, and practically shrieks, “I was _fucking kidding_!” while Ange laughs. He’s really getting used to that laugh. He could get used to a lot of this, he discovers. And he really doesn’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me [here on tumblr](https://gopuckurself.tumblr.com/) where I sometimes write moments from Enjolras's point of view and make anons want to claw their faces off from love of smittenjolras
> 
> oh edited to add: I borrowed the band-aid ruler from an actual erotica writer I followed on tumblr before the ban. so while I used to have links to reference photos, those are long since deleted. take this as your reminder from me to pay for your porn when you can, no matter the medium, because it's hard enough out there without your work being stolen.


End file.
